On May 5 Bulgaria and Turkey signed a readmission agreement.
The agreement is particularly aimed at those migrants who are caught trying to irregularly cross the Bulgarian-Turkish border and will allow Bulgaria to send those people back to Turkey.
The bilateral protocol, linked to the EU-Turkey deal sealed on March 18, sets out the procedures to send back people to Turkey and was signed by the Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala and his Bulgarian counterpart Rumyana Bachvarova.
According to the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), the agreement will be in force from June 1.
“The protocol is aimed to ensure that migrants who have entered Bulgaria illegally will be returned to Turkey and the routes of illegal migration and human trafficking will be blocked,” the Bulgarian news agency BTA summarized.
The protocol is also “a warning for migrant smugglers and will be the first among European Union countries,” Bachvarova said.
Details about the concrete implementation of the readmission agreement are not available at this stage.