European Free Trade Association

Bulgaria has joined the Schengen area for free travel, but initially only by air and sea routes. This entails the elimination of border controls for air travel among member countries of the agreement. Here are some key questions and answers for travelers regarding this development:

What is Schengen?

Bulgaria has improved its results on the rule of law, moving up two positions to 60th from last year's 62nd place among 140 countries, according to the Rule of Law Index (RLI) of The World Justice Project (WJP) for 2022. Bulgaria country has 55 points (1 more than last year) out of 100 possible.

This was announced today by the European Council.
On June 21, the EU Council imposed sanctions against 78 Belarusian citizens and seven entities for serious violations of human rights and repression of civil society, the opposition and journalists, and for the forced landing of a passenger plane.

That should happen at the next EU Western Balkans summit in May 2020, highlights the paper and adds that there are more models at stake, each heading towards offering a privileged partnership to candidate countries instead of enlargement, more precisely, economic integration without formal membership.

The contribution of entrepreneurship, SMEs, start-ups, and scale-ups to EU's competitiveness will be among the topics to be discussed at an informal meeting of the ministers responsible for Competitiveness (COMPET) - Internal Market and Industry section, Romania's Economy Minister Niculae Badalau said on Friday.

After intense debates that went on for an entire evening, British lawmakers rejected the four alternative options for the Brexit deal proposed for voting, the World Agencies said.
 
A total of eight alternative options (A to H) were proposed for voting, of which Parliament Speaker John Berkow approved four (C, D E and G) for the vote.

Turkey and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries—Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland—signed an agreement on June 25 to enlarge their free trade agreement (FTA).

Bulgaria ranked 53rd out of 113 countries surveyed worldwide, according to the Rule of Law Index of the World Justice Project (WJP).

The index ranks countries according to the way the rule of law is perceived by the general public.

Greece placed 41st out of 133 countries the world over, according to a the World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law Index, which ranks countries according to the way the rule of law is experienced by the general public.

Citizens of Bulgaria and Romania will enjoy the same working rights in Switzerland as other citizens of the European Union from June 1.

The Swiss government is lifting its restrictions on workers of the two Balkan countries, as the seven-year-transition period, set from 2009, on the free movement of persons agreement between the EU and Switzerland, expired on May 31.