The European Commission on Tuesday reiterated its recommendation that three EU member states -- Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania -- should be admitted to the Schengen Area after they met the membership criteria.

Today the EC presented its the State of Schengen Report 2022. This is the first time the Commission is presenting such a report, following last year’s Schengen Strategy.

The report also “reminds of the importance of completing the Schengen area and calls upon the Council to adopt the decisions to allow Croatia, as well as Romania and Bulgaria, to formally become a part of it, in view of the fact that all criteria have been fulfilled. The same will apply to Cyprus once it has successfully completed the Schengen evaluation process.”

The State of Schengen report will serve as the basis for discussions of Members of the European Parliament and Home Affairs Ministers in the Schengen Forum on 2 June, and in the upcoming Schengen Council on 10 June.

The report sets a list of priority actions for 2022-2023 that are to be addressed at both national and European level such as implementing the new IT architecture and interoperability for border management, making full use of cross-border cooperation tools, ensuring systematic checks at the external borders of all travellers, ensuring that Frontex reaches the full potential of its mandate, lifting all long-lasting internal border controls, and adopting the revised Schengen Borders Code.