Bulgaria ready to enforce new EU migration and asylum rules

Bulgaria’s State Agency for Refugees (SAR) announced that it will implement the European Union Migration and Asylum Pact that entered into force on Friday. Agency president Ivan Ivanov said the pact introduces a completely new border procedure, allowing much faster processing of international protection claims and quicker returns directly from the external frontier.

The agency has drawn up a roadmap in coordination with the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) and will adapt the Eurodac system into a broader migration and asylum database. Implementation involves close cooperation with the General Directorate of Border Police, the Ministry of Interior’s Migration Directorate, the State Agency for National Security, as well as European partners such as Europol and Frontex. The reform, part of the Common European Asylum System (SECA), aims to strengthen external EU borders and curb secondary movements of asylum seekers across the bloc.