Managing illegal migration, securing the common Romanian-Bulgarian border area and EU's external border, as well as dismantling transborder organised crime networks, were among the topics addressed by Romanian Interior Minister Catalin Predoiu and his Bulgarian counterpart Daniel Mitov, during a meeting on home affairs in the new capacity as Schengen member states.

'Managing border flows is important for the Interior Ministry. We want Romanian citizens to feel directly and concretely the accession to the Schengen Area. I understand that the Bulgarian side must continue repair works on the Ruse-Giurgiu Friendship Bridge, but I discussed with my counterpart and friend, Minister Mitov, concrete measures to ease traffic and support citizens crossing the border through mixed patrols and other operational measures to facilitate border traffic,' Predoiu is quoted as saying in an Interior Ministry (MAI) press release sent to AGERPRES on Wednesday.

He proposed that immediate attention be focused on strengthening control at external borders and ensuring safe mobility within the Schengen Area, combating organised crime networks and transborder threats, as well as improving responses to new challenges through the development of joint mechanisms to fight cybercrime and hybrid attacks.

Combating drugs was also on the discussion agenda, with the ministers agreeing that a strengthened joint effort at the European level is needed to wage the war on drugs, with increased involvement from all police structures and effective international coordination with the support of EU agencies.

'The Bulgarian minister thanked his Romanian counterpart for the permanent and consolidated cooperation at both leadership and technical levels between the ministries in the multiple areas of internal affairs, especially for the joint efforts to manage borders and effectively combat transborder organised crime, where intensifying cooperation between relevant structures in joint investigations was considered essential,' the quoted source shows.

The meeting is part of the dynamic calendar of ministerial-level contacts and continues the discussions held both bilaterally on February 3 in Svilengrad (in the context of the official ceremony launching joint patrols on the Bulgarian-Turkish border, with the participation of the Romanian minister, alongside the Bulgarian, Hungarian ministers and a representative of Austria's Federal Ministry of the Interior), as well as the most recent discussions at the March 5 Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting.

The ministers' dialogue focused on the priorities of bilateral cooperation in internal affairs in the new capacity as member states fully applying the Schengen acquis, namely managing illegal migration, securing the common Romanian-Bulgarian border area and the EU's external border and dismantling transborder organised crime networks. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Daniel Alexandru Florea; EN - writing by: Adina Panaitescu)