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Roberta Metsola: Romania deserves positive decision this year on joining Schengen Area
Romania expects and deserves a positive decision during the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union on the enlargement of the Schengen Area, said Tuesday the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, who was optimistic about Romania and Bulgaria's accession to the Schengen free-travel area.
"You have been not only expecting this decision, but deserving it since 2011.../.../ That's when the [European] Parliament has done its job and if we have to do something more to identify what we need to do, we will do it. Majorities exist, there is no problem as far as we are concerned. So I think we will find a solution. We have high expectations from this presidency [the Spanish presidency of the EU Council] that it will try to work with Austrian colleagues and others, if there are other countries where there are still questions and I think these questions can be answered,'' Metsola said in an interview organised by European Newsroom for its member agencies at the EP headquarters in Brussels.
She thus answered a question from AGERPRES on the chances of a positive decision on Romania and Bulgaria's Schengen accession to be made during the current six-month EU Council presidency.
Bulgaria and Romania wish to become members of the free-travel area, but Austria and the Netherlands blocked a positive decision in the JHA Council last December, citing insufficient control of migrant flows as a reason. While Bulgaria's accession was blocked by the Netherlands and Austria, in Romania's case opposition came only from Vienna.
"I was in the Council and I remember every European Council, with this point that was brought by your President, who said: 'What my fellow citizens deserve, they should get'. I was in Bucharest two days after the non-decision of the [December 2022 JHA, editor's note] Council. I couldn't look these young people in the eye. So I hope, expect and hope that we will have a decision that will be acceptable. I have spoken to the President and the Prime Minister, both the previous and the current one, Mr Ciolacu, to find a way out," Metsola said.
In her annual State of the European Union address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg earlier this month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called on Austria to allow Romania and Bulgaria to join Schengen "without any delay".
Earlier this year, the Netherlands began giving diplomatic signals that it might drop its veto against Bulgaria, which would leave Austria isolated in the EU on the issue. One reason was a significant justice reform in Bulgaria, and another was the European Commission's decision to end the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) in the two neighbouring countries.
Prime minister Marcel Ciolacu said earlier this month that Spain, as the country holding the presidency of the Council of the European Union, supports Romania's accession to the Schengen area and is keen to put the issue back on the agenda.
By the end of the Spanish Presidency of the EU Council at the end of the year, three more meetings of the European Home Affairs Interior Ministers Council are scheduled: on September 28, October 18 and December 4.