As of January 1, 2025, the European Union will have two new members of the Schengen free-travel zone – Romania and Bulgaria – which will see the lift of their internal land borders.
The green light follows Austria’s decision on Monday to drop its veto against both countries’ accessions.
The nations were originally supposed to join the Schegnen zone in 2023 alongside Croatia, but the deal unravelled when Austria objected that Bulgaria and Romania were failing to handle a steep rise in migrants arriving through the Western Balkan route.
“After ‘Schengen Air’, ‘Schengen Land’ is now open to Romania and Bulgaria,” said Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner on Monday, adding that Austria’s demands led to a drop in migrant arrival numbers.
Both countries partially joined the Schengen zone in March, when air and maritime restrictions were lifted.
The internal affairs ministers of Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria and Romania agreed last month to “initiate the necessary steps” to set a date to lift checks on land borders with Romania and Bulgaria, on the condition that joint efforts to stem irregular migration continued.
Romania and Bulgaria have been EU members since 2007, and have filled the requirements to enter Schengen since 2010.
The Schengen zone first materialised in 1985 and now includes most EU nations, as well as some non-EU countries including Norway and Switzerland. The only EU members that are not part of the Schengen Area are Cyprus and Ireland.
The area encompasses 29 European countries, who have officially abolished border controls at their mutual borders. It exists as part of the wider area of freedom, security and justice policy of the EU and mostly functions as a single jurisdiction under a common visa policy for international travel purposes.
The UK has never been in Schengen, although visitors from the UK can currently visit the zone without a visa for up to 90 days every 180 days.
The territory of four microstates – Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City – are also de facto included in the Schengen Area due to their small size and difficulty of maintaining active borders.
The Schengen Area has a population of more than 450 million people and an area of nearly 1.7 million square miles.
About 1.7 million people commute to work across an internal European border each day and in some regions these people constitute up to a third of the workforce.