The interior ministers of the European Union (EU) approved the accession of Croatia to the Schengen area, the free movement of people from January 1, but rejected the demands of Romania and Bulgaria. “The decision has been made. Now it is officially confirmed, Croatia will join the Schengen area from January 1, 2023,” the president of the Czech Republic, which chairs the bloc, told AFP on Twitter.

Thus, Croatia will become the 27th country to join the Schengen area and the 23rd in the EU. In July last year, the country received the green light to join the euro as a single currency from January 1. With 3.9 million inhabitants, Croatia has been a member of the EU since 2013. With the accession of Croatia, 27 countries will join the Schengen area (23 of the 27 EU, as well as Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland) donde están suprimidos los controles de pasaporte en sus fronteras comunes.

Meanwhile, Romania and Bulgaria’s hopes of joining the group were dashed by Austria’s veto, as the Netherlands expressed its opposition in Bulgaria’s case. “I am also disappointed,” said European Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson, who added that the two countries “deserve to be full Schengen members.”

Arriving at the meeting, Austrian Minister Gerhard Karner announced that his country would veto the entry of Romania and Bulgaria. Austria is facing a significant increase in asylum requests and fears that the disappearance of migration controls in these two countries will lead to an even greater increase in migrants.

“This year, we registered more than 100,000 illegal crossings of the Austrian border,” the minister explained. For his part, his counterpart from the Netherlands, Eric Van der Burgh, said that his country was favorable to the accession of Croatia and Romania, but made it clear that “we do not agree” with the recommendation of the European Commission (the executive arm of the EU) to allow him in to go to Bulgaria. When Bulgaria joined the Schengen area, it also received majority support from the European Parliament.

Van der Burg, en tanto, said before the ministerial meeting that his country was still concerned about the “corruption and human rights” situation in Bulgaria. On the procedural issue, the demands of Romania and Bulgaria are related. The two countries joined the EU in 2007 and have been asking to become part of the Schengen area for more than a decade. For his part, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlasca said that his country supports the expansion of space to three countries.

El espacio “is the mainstay of the EU and there are three countries that have demonstrated that they fulfill all the requirements to be full Schengen members. Spain’s support is firm,” he said. The EU has toughened its stance on migration following a massive influx of asylum seekers in 2015-2016, when hundreds of thousands of Syrians died in a war that devastated their country. However, reforms demanded by the EU’s so-called “frontline” countries – those directly receiving the flows, such as Italy, Spain, Malta and Greece – remain at a standstill.