The cooperation between Romania and Bulgaria on the joint Schengen accession

On the 29th of November, 2007 an informal meeting took place between representatives of Bulgaria and Romania, at the initiative of the forthcoming presidencies of UE (Slovenia and France).
The topics discussed were

• the future schedule of the Schengen Evaluation Working Group
• startup of the Schengen evaluation process for Romania and Bulgaria

• The evaluation process has to be approached jointly by the two states in order to avoid additional expenses and overlapping.
• The ministers of the interior of Bulgaria and Romania will send to the Schengen Evaluation Working Group until March 2008 at the latest, a common political declaration, where March 2011 will be settled as accession date to the Schengen area.

Between 8-9th of January, 2008, a bilateral meeting with the Bulgarian partners took place in Sofia; on this occasion the text of the Romanian-Bulgarian Common Declaration regarding the accession to the Schengen area was agreed and common activities for reaching the assumed objective have been defined.

Between 24-26th of January, 2008, during the Justice and Home Affairs Council in Brdo, the ministers of interior of the two countries signed the Romanian- Bulgarian Common Declaration and submitted it to the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU. Thus, 2011 was assumed as joint accession date to the Schengen Area.

On Sunday, the 16th of March, 2008, a meeting on Schengen issues took place in Constanţa between the two ministers of interior, Mr. Cristian David and Mr. Rumen Petkov.

The delegations of the two countries were leaded by the responsible secretaries of state, Mr. Vasile-Gabriel Niţă and Mr. Goran Yonov. This meeting was a continuation of the meeting in Sofia in January 2008, during which the Romanian-Bulgarian Common Declaration regarding the accession to the Schengen Area was agreed upon.

On this occasion, the two parties have commonly agreed the schedule of the Schengen evaluation missions to start at the beginning of 2009. The resulting document will be discussed in April 2008 in Brussels in Troika compilation (Romania, Bulgaria and the Slovenian presidency of the Council of the EU).

The Schengen evaluation missions will take place over 2 years (2009-2010) in the following fields: police cooperation, data protection, visas, maritime, air and land borders, and Schengen Information System.

In June 2009, during JHA Council, Romania and Bulgaria presented a joint declaration regarding the common intention to connect to SIS through SISOne4ALL solution.

On the 23rd of February 2010, a meeting between Mr. Marian TUTILESCU, secretary of state, head of Schengen Department and Mr. Pavlin DIMITROV, deputy of the Bulgarian minister of interior took place, in Ruse, Bulgaria. During the meeting the Joint Action Planfor Partnership and Implementation of Joint Measures for the Preparation of Romania and the Republic of Bulgaria for the Accession to the Schengen Area in March 2011 was discussed and signed.