EU-funded pilot projects in Bulgaria and Romania aim to expedite asylum and fund border technologies. The pilots were launched in March, with Romania receiving almost €11m and Bulgaria receiving €45m.
The pilots are part of a wider bid to convince Austria and the Netherlands to allow Bulgaria and Romania to join the visa-free travel Schengen zone as early as this December. Against a background of migrants transiting through the western Balkans in the hopes of reaching Germany, Bulgaria has lobbied hard to convince Austria not to block its accession. However, reports of corruption among Bulgaria’s border police and links to criminal gangs have cast a further shadow over Sofia’s Schengen aspirations. Human rights groups in Romania and Bulgaria have reported over 5,000 pushbacks, affecting around 87,000 people, at the Bulgarian-Turkish border last year, almost double the number in 2021. The European Commission has published progress reports into the pilots, offering a more detailed glimpse into how public money is being used to curtail migration. The Romanian pilot included almost 450 joint-patrols with Serbian counterparts, while Bulgaria’s pilot helped expedite asylum decisions at Pastrogor, a remote transit centre along the border with Turkey.
Bulgaria rejected nearly 1,500 asylum applications from over 2000 registered between March and September. As part of a plan with EU border agency Frontex, Bulgaria has drawn up a list of safe foreign states to ease people’s returns.
CENTRAL EASTERN EUROPE NEWS
The Results of Tighter East European Migration Management
Follow us
