Hungary supports Bulgaria in its plan to join Schengen, said Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó after a meeting in Sofia with his Bulgarian counterpart Nikolay Milkov, who, in turn, detailed what he wants to do so that his country offers to join on October 1, so that to be realistic, reports the Bulgarian press.

According to Peter Sijarto, it is “appalling” that Bulgaria did not get the green light to join the free movement zone. “As far as we are concerned, we will continue to insist that double standards do not apply. We will not allow subjective criteria to replace objective criteria. Bulgaria objectively fulfills the Schengen entry criteria,” said Peter Szijharto, quoted by novinite. com.

“Bulgaria must become a member of the Schengen zone, and we will not allow anyone, for political or other reasons, not to support it,” said Peter Sijarto, according to 24chasa.bg.

For his part, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolai Milkov reiterated that Bulgaria’s goal is to join Schengen on October 1. “Officially, we don’t have such a date yet, but this is the date we have set as a goal, provided that everything we plan is done, and in that sense it is realistic,” the head of diplomacy said from Sofia.

“This issue is very important for us. I assured our Hungarian guest that Bulgaria will continue to work on this priority with all its might. We will work in several directions. The first is related to the activities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the strengthening of resources to solve the problem of illegal migration. This is done in various sectors. First of all, it is about the physical protection of our border with Turkey. In December, the Bulgarian president agreed to increase aid from Turkey to prevent migrants from reaching our Inside Bulgaria, every effort will be made to detect and prevent the movement of migrants to the Serbian border. The third is to guard the border with Serbia so that migrants who have overcome the first two barriers do not pass the third,” detailed Milkov, quoted by 24chasa.bg.

“As for our diplomatic activities, we will work primarily with the European Commission and the Dutch side so that Bulgaria has an evaluation report that will be ready in June-July. It will follow the reporting model of the Cooperation Mechanism and the Evaluation should show what we have done since 2019, when Bulgaria last reported under the Mechanism. The idea is that it covers everything that the partners want and expect to see inside the country, so that the report meets their expectations,” Milkov emphasized.

“In addition, this report will allow, after its acceptance by the Dutch side, The Hague to take part in a verification mission — to check how border activities are actually carried out, methods of obtaining visas, legal cooperation with third countries. party etc. If all this happens, we look forward to October 1st to join the Schengen area. This date was not agreed with our partners, but it is realistic and we have set it as a goal,” the Bulgarian Foreign Minister added.

“The key point on which our membership in Schengen depends is the adoption of those laws that the interim government submitted to the parliament so that we do not receive a negative assessment again, but I hope that this scenario will be avoided,” Mykola emphasized. Milkov.

“Hungary supports us very much in this goal because, as the external border of the Schengen area, Hungary is aware of the challenges we face. For our part, we presented the road map and our accession priorities,” Milkov added after meeting with his Hungarian counterpart.

(source: news.ro)