A major foreign policy goal, Romania’s accession to
\nthe passport-free travel area has been on Bucharest’s to do list for quite a while now. Confident that once the technical
\ncriteria have been met, the accession would be a mere formality, Romania did
\nits homework well and on time, so in March 2011, when the move had been
\nscheduled originally, it had checked all the boxes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
But the country’s Schengen accession has been
\npostponed repeatedly since then, because of the opposition of several
\ncountries, which explained their decision by making the accession conditional
\non the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism, in spite of the accession
\nrecommendation coming from the European Commission. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The topic is now back to the forefront, and Romania’s
\nchances of finally getting a positive decision on this seem better than ever. Germany,
\none of Europe’s strongest voices, made it quite clear, both through chancellor Olaf
\nScholz, and the political groups in the European Parliament, where only 2 MEPs
\nfrom the far-right group Identity and Democracy spoke against Romania’s and
\nBulgaria’s accession. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
At the recent debate in the European Parliament, the
\nCzech presidency of the EU Council voiced hopes that in the December meeting it
\nwould secure unanimity for the accession of the 2 countries. Romania has
\nalready proved what had to be proved, including in practical terms, with its
\nmanagement of the aftermath of Russia’s invasion in Ukraine. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
A proof that things are moving in the right direction
\nis the visit made these days by an EC expert team, checking the 2 countries’ readiness
\nto join the Schengen area. The European inspectors are monitoring border
\nchecks, the asylum and migrant return policies, and the extent to which the
\nstaff is trained in line with Schengen regulations. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The Schengen accession was also the topic of a meeting
\nbetween the PM Nicolae Ciuc\u0103 and the Romanian MEPs in the ruling coalition
\n(comprising the National Liberal Party, the Social Democratic Party and the
\nDemocratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians). They assured the PM of the support of
\nthe main groups in the European Parliament for next week’s resolution
\nconcerning the issue. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the interior minister Lucian Bode called on
\npoliticians to declare a truce and to work together to ensure Romania’s
\nadmission to Europe’s unrestricted travel area as of January 1. He made these
\nstatements in Buz\u0103u, southern Romania, at the opening of a new unit of the
\nMultinational Schengen Training Centre, where thousands of experts have already
\nbeen trained.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
In the context of accession preparations, the PM of
\nthe Netherlands, Mark Rutte, is also expected to visit Romania on Wednesday and
\nto meet with president Klaus Iohannis. In recent years, the Netherlands has
\nbeen the only country to oppose Romania’s Schengen accession. (AMP)<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
EC experts in charge with checking compliance with Schengen accession criteria are in Romania for an assessment<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":63593,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[32986,40448,38478,19347,28976],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-93437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-accession","tag-criteria","tag-inspection","tag-romania","tag-schengen"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n