BUCHAREST, June 7 (Xinhua) -- Bulgaria and Romania have met the technical criteria for acceding to the Schengen Area, and the Co-operation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) can't last forever, visiting Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zakharieva stated on Wednesday.
"Romania and Bulgaria's accession to Schengen is a security issue for the entire Europe, for all the European states, and we hope the political decision... will become a reality as soon as possible," said Zakharieva in a joint press conference with her Romanian counterpart Teodor Melescanu.
According to Zakharieva, the two neighboring countries have mutual interests in respect to the Schengen treaty and are fulfilling the technical criteria for the accession to the border-free area.
She stressed that Bulgaria and Romania must convince their European partners that the outcome of justice reforms is irreversible in the two countries, and the CVM, under which the progress with judiciary reform is gauged, can't last forever.
"The most important objective to us is completing the judiciary reforms in the two countries. This mechanism cannot last forever, ten years have passed already," stressed Zakharieva.
Schengen accession has been a long process for Romania and Bulgaria, whose entry into the border-free area has been constantly delayed since 2011, despite Bucharest and Sofia authorities' claims that they had done all the needed preparations.
Currently, citizens of the two countries are allowed visa-free entry into the Schengen zone and there are eased accesses to Romania and Bulgaria for Schengen visa holders, but the two European Union member countries are not full members of the Schengen system.
