BUCHAREST: Bulgaria and Romania joined Europe’s vast Schengen area of free movement on Sunday, opening up travel by air and sea without border checks after a 13-year wait.
A veto by Austria, however, means the new status will not apply to land routes, after Vienna expressed concerns over a potential influx of asylum seekers.
Despite the partial membership, the lifting of controls at the two countries’ air and sea borders is of significant symbolic value.
Admission to Schengen is an “important milestone” for Bulgaria and Romania, symbolizing a “question of dignity, of belonging to the European Union,” according to foreign policy analyst Stefan Popescu.
“Any Romanian who had to walk down a lane separate from other European citizens felt being treated differently,” he told AFP.
Ivan Petrov, a 35-year-old Bulgarian marketing executive who lives in France, said he was enthusiastic about less stressful traveling and the time he would be able to save.
“This is a great success for both countries, and a historic moment for the Schengen area — the largest area of free movement in the world,” EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement Saturday.
“Together, we are building a stronger, more united Europe for all our citizens.”
With Bulgaria and Romania arriving joining Sunday, the Schengen zone will comprise 29 members — 25 of the 27 European Union member states as well as Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
Romania’s government said Schengen rules would apply to four sea ports and 17 airports, with the country’s Otopeni airport near the capital Bucharest serving as the biggest hub for Schengen flights.

More staff including border police and immigration officers will be deployed to airports to “support passengers and detect those who want to take advantage to leave Romania illegally,” it added.
Random checks will also be carried out to catch people with false documents and to combat human trafficking.
Bulgaria and Romania both hope to fully integrate into Schengen by the end of the year, but Austria has so far relented only on air and sea routes.
Croatia, which joined the EU after Romania and Bulgaria, beat them to becoming Schengen’s 27th member in January 2023.
Created in 1985, the Schengen area allows more than 400 million people to travel freely without internal border controls.
While some have reason to celebrate, truck drivers, faced with endless queues at the borders with their European neighbors, feel left out.
Earlier this month, one of Romania’s main road transport unions the UNTRR called for “urgent measures” to get full Schengen integration, deploring the huge financial losses caused by the long waits.
“Romanian hauliers have lost billions of euros every year, just because of long waiting times at borders,” secretary general Radu Dinescu said.
According to the union, truckers usually wait eight to 16 hours at the border with Hungary, and from 20 to 30 hours at the Bulgarian border, with peaks of three days.
Bulgarian businesses have also voiced their anger over the slow progress.
“Only three percent of Bulgarian goods are transported by air and sea, the remaining 97 percent by land,” said Vasil Velev, president of the Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association (BICA).
“So we’re at three percent in Schengen and we don’t know when we’ll be there with the other 97 percent,” he told AFP.
Bucharest and Sofia have both said that there will be no going back.
“There is no doubt that this process is irreversible,” Romanian Interior Minister Catalin Predoiu said this month, adding it “must be completed by 2024 with the extension to land borders.”

CHIANG MAI, Thailand: Thai tourist hotspot Chiang Mai was blanketed by hazy smog Friday, as residents and visitors to the usually picturesque northern city were left wheezing in the toxic air.

The country's second largest city topped air monitoring website IQAir’s table of the world’s most polluted cities early Friday.
Levels of PM2.5 pollutants — cancer-causing microparticles small enough to enter the bloodstream through the lungs — were classified as “very unhealthy” and hit more than 35 times the World Health Organization’s annual guideline.
“It’s very high. All I have is this mask which is the same one I used for Covid,” orange seller Kamol, 62, told AFP at the city’s Warorot Market.
Thailand’s former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was recently freed early from a jail sentence for graft and abuse of power following 15 years in self-exile, visited the market on Friday, donning a face mask while he posed for photos with well-wishers.
High levels of pollution frequently hit Thaksin’s hometown of Chiang Mai during the early months of the year when farmers often burn crops to clear land, and forest fires and exhaust fumes also add to the problem.
Rising awareness of the health implications has prompted some action from the government, with Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin’s cabinet approving a Clean Air Act to tackle the issue in January.

The premier is also due to visit later Friday and is expected to meet with organizations tackling forest fires on Saturday.
But Chiang Mai residents — like orange seller Kamol, who sighed and shook his head when asked — said they had received no help.
“I need to get my health checked every year, especially for respiratory diseases,” he said.
A government agency warned this month that more official action was needed, saying at least 10 million people required treatment for pollution-related health problems last year.
“The pollution is always high, especially this time of year,” said 50-year-old Sariya while shopping for groceries in Chiang Mai.
“There is nothing we can do about it since it’s always high.”
Sariya, who gave only one name, also said the city’s location — nestled between hills, trapping the toxic smog — made the situation worse.
But he was “more worried” about people living there with underlying health issues, adding: “We need to help ourselves.”

Last year, sky-rocketing levels of pollution saw international tourists discouraged from visiting, with vendors despairing for business, as the Thai Hotel Association Northern Chapter also warned domestic visitors were canceling bookings.
But in Chiang Mai on Friday, the streets were filled with ambling tourists who seemed unperturbed by the smog.
“I’m not afraid of the pollution,” said 32-year-old Chinese tourist Andy, visiting from Chengdu, who said his country also suffered from poor air pollution.
“I just enjoy the city because it’s very nice.”
French programmer Guillaume Tieufri, 44, said the pollution had not spoilt his four-day trip.
“You just have to go on and live your day.”