France wants more efforts from Bulgaria to join Schengen

Bulgaria would join the Schengen area, but France needs more time to be convinced of its readiness, French Interior Minister Claude Gueant said on Monday.

“Accession to Schengen requires a number of conditions to be completed — from technical preparedness and general behavior, to tackling crime and corruption,” Gueant told a joint press conference with his Bulgarian counterpart Tsvetan Tsvetanov and Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov.

The officials would try to talk about these conditions in the coming weeks, Gueant said.

France was confident that the technical assessment for Bulgaria would be positive, but a political assessment would take place as well, Gueant added.

He said France believed that Bulgaria was called upon to join the Schengen area and had to do it.