Bulgaria insists on joining EU's visa-free zone

Bulgaria says that if EU does not grant it a visa-free status within the union the country will reconsider its support for the legislation that makes that system possible, reported AP.

Foreign Minister Nikolai Mladenov complained on Saturday that Bulgarians are not "secondhand citizens in Europe."

On Friday, Dutch Immigration Minister Gerd Leers said his country plans to block Bulgaria's entry into Shengen over insufficient work in the fight against corruption.

Mladenov said he hopes that EU will accept Bulgaria and Romania next week as equal members of the visa-free zone. If not, he said, "Bulgaria will have to consider very carefully its policy for supporting the legislation."

Bulgaria and Romania joined the European Union in 2007, but have been left out from the borderless zone.