Ceremonies were held just before midnight Tuesday to mark Bulgaria's and Romania's full membership in Europe's Schengen area, the culmination of years of negotiations by the Eastern European countries to join the ID check-free travel zone.
Another short ceremony was held at a border crossing between Hungary and Romania with a meeting between Hungary's national chief of police and the chief inspector of Romania's border police.
Identification checks at the land borders between Bulgaria and Romania and their neighboring European Union-member countries were officially ceased at midnight, providing travelers free access to the rest of the 27-member EU bloc.
Late on Tuesday, the interior ministers of Bulgaria and Romania met at the Ruse-Giurgiu border crossing between the two countries to mark the opening of the frontier.
The expansion of Schengen came after months of efforts to integrate Bulgaria and Romania into the zone by Hungary's government as it held the six-month rotating presidency of the EU.
