Bulgaria and Romania Partially Join Europe’s Schengen Area. Border Controls Will Remain in Place for the Time Being.

Approaching the Austrian border from the Südtirol
Europe’s Schengen Area, its border-free travel zone, became larger on Sunday with the addition of travel protections for two additional countries.
Romania and Bulgaria partially joined the Schengen Area over the past weekend, which means visitors who travel by air or sea from other countries in the area can cross their borders without an ID check.
International travelers who are visa0-exempt or have obtained a Schengen visa are free to move between member countries as tourists for up to 90 days within a 180-day period. This means that someone who is authorized to visit France, for example, is then also able to visit Austria and Germany without another passport check.
The Schengen Area, a zone encompassing 29 countries that have official abolished border controls at their mutual borders, is a single jurisdiction under a common visa policy for international travel purposes.  It traces  its origins back to  1985 as an intergovernmental project between five EU countries, namely France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. It is now the largest free travel area in the world.
In general, visitors who travel by land within the zone are not typically asked for ID at the border but land border controls will remain in effect here over illegal migration concerns.
Romania and Bulgaria joined the European Union on January 1, 2007, but the application of certain policy areas of the European Union such as the Schengen Area to Bulgaria and Romania was deferred to a later date
The area is named after the 1985 Schengen Agreement and the 1990 Schengen Convention. Both were signed in Schengen, Luxembourg. Schengen is the name of a small village in Luxembourg, on the border with Germany and France.
(Photo: Accura Media Group)