This December will be an important month for Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov and all Bulgarians seeking to benefit from their country’s inclusion in the Schengen visa-free area.

December marks the end of the Schengen programme, launched by the EU for Bulgaria and Romania on their accession in 2007, to facilitate their entry into the zone. The programme includes training programmes for administrative staff and border police and help with providing information systems and issuing standard biometric passports as well as the purchase of specialised vehicles, motor boats, helicopters and surveillance equipment. For all this, Bulgaria was due to receive 315 million leva. Both countries form the EU’s outer border, highlighting the importance of having them as "non-porous" Schengen members.

All the programme’s projects and tenders have to be completed by December 2009 and fulfilled by October 2010, so that the two countries can join in March 2011. This, at least, was the plan in 2007. Two years later, with the deadline fast approaching, the situation is worrying.

One of Tsvetanov’s first statements when he took office on July 27 was that the Interior Ministry’s previous leadership had proved slow in preparing the country for Schengen accession. Just four months ahead of the deadline, Tsvetanov said that Bulgaria had absorbed only 31 per cent of funds under the programme and would have to return the money by the end of the year unless it absorbed the other 69 per cent. The other consequence, of course, could be postponing Bulgaria’s entry into the area.

Tsvetanov sent Border Police head Krassimir Petrov into retirement and mapped out a plan for introducing biometric passports in March 2010, a main prerequisite for the visa-free zone. Hence Tsvetanov set the Schengen visa area as one of his ministry’s main priorities.   

His first test was to cope with the Dutch government’s negative reaction, always a vocal critic of Bulgaria’s efforts at strengthening its law-enforcement bodies. For several days in late August and early September, the media speculated that The Netherlands might demand that the European Commission impose sanctions on Bulgaria and Romania because of the two countries’ unconvincing pace of reforms. On September 4, The Netherlands confirmed that sanctions was still on its agenda. Dutch EU affairs minister, Frans Timmermans, told his country’s parliament that Bulgaria and Romania should not be accepted into the Schengen area in 2011 because they were not ready. 

Timmermans’ words war-ned Bulgaria about what it could expect from the September 15 meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels. Fortunately for Bulgaria and Tsvetanov, diplomacy worked well and EU foreign ministers only demanded more results from Bulgaria in its crime-busting efforts and did not tie this to Schengen entry as was feared.

A breath of fresh air
The EU foreign ministers’ decision came as a breath of fresh air to Tsvetanov who could now concentrate on compensating for the delay, as he frequently promised. On September 10, five days before the EU foreign ministers’ meeting, Tsvetanov met European Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot. After the meeting Tsvetanov said that Bulgaria still had a chance to join the visa-free area in 2011 but that much would depend on the EC’s evaluation of Bulgaria’s progress due to appear this December.