BLED, Slovenia, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Bulgaria expects to join the EU's border-free zone by the end of 2011 as planned and sees recent expulsions of mostly Romanian and Bulgarian Roma from France as irrelevant to that process, its foreign minister said.
"I hope that by the summer of next year we should be formally ready to begin discussions with our (EU) partners on entering Schengen," Nikolai Mladenov told Reuters in an interview on Monday, referring to the 25-nation Schengen zone.
Asked if the Roma issue would delay Bulgaria’s plans, he said on the sidelines of a political conference in Slovenia, "I should hope not. What is very important for us is to be assessed on the basis of what we have actually achieved until now."
Mladenov said only up to 150 Bulgarian Roma are expected to be repatriated and that their expulsion was an internal matter of France.
"We think that all citizens should abide by all national and EU legislation when they travel to other countries… If any citizens have not been able to prove that they have the means to support themselves, have the housing and the insurance… then the country has the right to take an initiative on that."
France has repatriated around 600 mostly Romanian Roma since announcing plans in late July to demolish hundreds of illegal Roma camps as part of a crackdown on crime.
"Everyone wants to travel… look at opportunities… but this should not come at the expense of other countries and should not be used to abuse the social security systems or hospitality of other countries," Mladenov said.
He said many countries in central and eastern Europe, including Bulgaria, should take steps to integrate their Roma communities, and Bulgaria was determined to improve its social policies to try to help the Roma out of poverty.
Mladenov was unable to say when Bulgaria would apply to join the pre-euro ERM-2 currency grid, initially planned for this year but postponed due to the global economic crisis.
"I hope that as the euro begins to come out of the crisis in its entirety we will be able to return to that question (of joining the ERM-2)… We remain very confident in the future of the euro," said Mladenov.
