Passport checks for people flying to and from Bulgaria and Romania will be abolished at Swiss airports, https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics reads. The Swiss government on Wednesday agreed to follow a recent European Union decision to lift internal border controls at air and maritime borders with Bulgaria and Romania. On December 30, the Council of the EU unanimously decided to lift checks on people at the internal air and sea borders with Bulgaria and Romania, as from March 31, 2024. Controls will remain in place at land borders but the council has hinted that a future decision will be taken on the matter. Switzerland, a member of Europe’s passport-free Schengen Zone, is following this decision. Romania and Bulgaria will also be able to issue their own Schengen visas themselves, the government said in a statement on Wednesday. The experience of Croatia's accession to the Schengen area on January 1, 2023 has shown that a decision of this kind does not lead to a marked increase in immigration, non-EU member Switzerland said. Existing instruments, including preventive measures, are used to combat illegal migratory flows and crime. The EU's decision follows 12 years of negotiations. Austria imposed its veto last year to protest against too many irregular migrants arriving on its territory, before agreeing to lift it in exchange for guarantees. Sofia and Bucharest have agreed to step up their fight against irregular migration. Bulgaria and Romania, members of the EU since 2007, have also undertaken to fully apply European law, which stipulates that asylum applications must be processed in the migrants' country of arrival. The Schengen area, created in 1985, allows over 400 million people to travel freely in Europe without internal border controls. It includes 23 of the 27 EU member states as well as their associated neighbours Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
The Romanian Constitutional Court (CCR) has ruled that a series of tax increases, including higher levies on housing, land, cars based on pollution norms, and stock market gains, may take effect starting January 1, 2026, Biziday.ro reported. The Court rejected a challenge filed by the opposition party AUR against the government’s fiscal reform law, on […]
A major animal-welfare campaign is happening in Iași this weekend, where one of Romania’s biggest charitable events dedicated to shelter animals will take place this Saturday, December 13. Now in its 18th edition, Ai cumva o păturică? (Do you happen to have a blanket?) aims to expand nationally starting in 2026. This year’s event begins […]
Cluj-Napoca, in western Romania, will host next year the first edition of the Central European Olympiad in Artificial Intelligence (CEOAI), an annual competition for secondary school students, Edupedu.ro reported. The event will be held from July 14 to July 19, 2026, at Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj. The...
Romania has issued more than 217,000 temporary protection permits to Ukrainian citizens since the start of the war, while a total of 4,534 Ukrainians have applied for asylum in the country, according to data released by the General Inspectorate for Immigration (IGI) and quoted by Agerpres. The IGI reported that between...
Tekpon, a Romanian-founded software solutions marketplace, announced that it acquired the TNW (The Next Web) brand from The Financial Times. The deal targets full ownership of the TNW media and events brands, which cover and convene the European technology ecosystem, from the FT. “The transaction is Tekpon’s largest investment in media and events so far. […]
In a market shaped by shrinking supply, rising capital and shifting global flows, North Bucharest Investments is positioning itself at the center of Bucharest’s next residential cycle. For CEO Vlad Musțeată, 2026 is not a year to watch from the sidelines, but “one of the clearest buying windows of the past decade” for disciplined investors […]
