Home stretch in Romania’s Schengen accession?

EC experts in charge with checking compliance with Schengen accession criteria are in Romania for an assessment

Corina Cristea, 11.10.2022, 13:50

A major foreign policy goal, Romania’s accession to
the passport-free travel area has been on Bucharest’s to do list for quite a while now. Confident that once the technical
criteria have been met, the accession would be a mere formality, Romania did
its homework well and on time, so in March 2011, when the move had been
scheduled originally, it had checked all the boxes.

But the country’s Schengen accession has been
postponed repeatedly since then, because of the opposition of several
countries, which explained their decision by making the accession conditional
on the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism, in spite of the accession
recommendation coming from the European Commission.

The topic is now back to the forefront, and Romania’s
chances of finally getting a positive decision on this seem better than ever. Germany,
one of Europe’s strongest voices, made it quite clear, both through chancellor Olaf
Scholz, and the political groups in the European Parliament, where only 2 MEPs
from the far-right group Identity and Democracy spoke against Romania’s and
Bulgaria’s accession.

At the recent debate in the European Parliament, the
Czech presidency of the EU Council voiced hopes that in the December meeting it
would secure unanimity for the accession of the 2 countries. Romania has
already proved what had to be proved, including in practical terms, with its
management of the aftermath of Russia’s invasion in Ukraine.

A proof that things are moving in the right direction
is the visit made these days by an EC expert team, checking the 2 countries’ readiness
to join the Schengen area. The European inspectors are monitoring border
checks, the asylum and migrant return policies, and the extent to which the
staff is trained in line with Schengen regulations.

The Schengen accession was also the topic of a meeting
between the PM Nicolae Ciucă and the Romanian MEPs in the ruling coalition
(comprising the National Liberal Party, the Social Democratic Party and the
Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians). They assured the PM of the support of
the main groups in the European Parliament for next week’s resolution
concerning the issue.

Meanwhile, the interior minister Lucian Bode called on
politicians to declare a truce and to work together to ensure Romania’s
admission to Europe’s unrestricted travel area as of January 1. He made these
statements in Buzău, southern Romania, at the opening of a new unit of the
Multinational Schengen Training Centre, where thousands of experts have already
been trained.

In the context of accession preparations, the PM of
the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, is also expected to visit Romania on Wednesday and
to meet with president Klaus Iohannis. In recent years, the Netherlands has
been the only country to oppose Romania’s Schengen accession. (AMP)