Bulgaria Yet to Join Schengen Deal

Dutch Ambassador Karel van Kesteren announced that Bulgaria will join the Schengen Agreement sooner or later, but not at the moment.

“When you want to give the key to your neighbor, you have to trust him,” the ambassador said in an interview for Btv.

Van Kesteren said Bulgaria are preparing to join the border-free Schengen area once its officials come together and change the situation in the country, after the latest anti-government demonstrations. He also urged the country to stop its confidential transactions. He expressed his worry about Bulgaria’s Socialist-led administration, which has depended on the help of nationalist party Ataka in Parliament.

The Dutch ambassador is supportive of the word of warning from the French and German Ambassadors in Sofia last week on the Bulgarian government’s oligarchy, which does not suit an EU membership.

“Everyone knows that there have been appointments made under the influence of political decisions – and this has to stop,” Van Kesteren said on Wednesday.