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Switzerland to remove air border controls with Bulgaria and Romania

Swiss border guard.
The experience of Croatia's accession to the Schengen area on January 1, 2023 has shown that a decision of this kind does not lead to a marked increase in immigration, the Swiss government said. © Keystone / Gaetan Bally

Passport checks for people flying to and from Bulgaria and Romania will be abolished at Swiss airports. The Swiss government on Wednesday agreed to follow a recent European Union decision to lift internal border controls at air and maritime borders with Bulgaria and Romania.

On December 30, the Council of the EU unanimously decided to lift checks on people at the internal air and sea borders with Bulgaria and Romania, as from March 31, 2024. Controls will remain in place at land borders but the council has hinted that a future decision will be taken on the matter.

Switzerland, a member of Europe’s passport-free Schengen Zone, is following this decision. Romania and Bulgaria will also be able to issue their own Schengen visas themselves, the government said in a statement on Wednesday.

+ Swiss to remove limits on workers from Romania and Bulgaria

The experience of Croatia’s accession to the Schengen area on January 1, 2023 has shown that a decision of this kind does not lead to a marked increase in immigration, non-EU member Switzerland said.

+ Switzerland to continue to curb immigration from Croatia

Existing instruments, including preventive measures, are used to combat illegal migratory flows and crime.

The EU’s decision follows 12 years of negotiations. Austria imposed its veto last year to protest against too many irregular migrants arriving on its territory, before agreeing to lift it in exchange for guarantees.

+ How free movement impacts the Swiss economy

Sofia and Bucharest have agreed to step up their fight against irregular migration. Bulgaria and Romania, members of the EU since 2007, have also undertaken to fully apply European law, which stipulates that asylum applications must be processed in the migrants’ country of arrival.

The Schengen area, created in 1985, allows over 400 million people to travel freely in Europe without internal border controls. It includes 23 of the 27 EU member states as well as their associated neighbours Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.

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