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Gov't: the 10 cross-border roads connecting Romania and Hungary depend on Romania's Schengen accession
The Government will send European Commissioner for Regional Policy Corina Cretu a letter signed by deputy Premier and Minister of Regional Development and Public Administration Vasile Dincu, stating that "the permanent operation of the 10 cross-border roads connecting Romania and Hungary, co-financed by the EU under the 2007 - 2013 Cross-border Cooperation Program, ultimately depends on Romania's Schengen accession."
In connection with this issue, the Government agreed under a memorandum the official reply to the January 13 letter whereby Commissioner Cretu asked Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos to take measures for these roads to become functional as soon as possible, the Government informs.
"As the decision on Romania's Schengen accession has been successively delayed despite Romania's fully meeting all the necessary technical criteria, the responsibility for delaying accession to the Schengen Area cannot be attributed to the Romanian authorities," reads the letter agreed under the memorandum.
According to the cited source "the Romanian authorities have moved to ensure, to the possible extent, the fulfillment of the projects' goals, as the decision to build the 10 cross-border roads was taken by the Hungarian Managing Authority of the Program, which had the contracting responsibility.
"They estimated that Romania will join the Schengen Area by the end of the implementation period of the aforementioned cross-border program, so that border controls for the people transiting the roads would not have been required. Starting from these premises, the Hungarian Managing Authority did not set as a mandatory requirement the assent of the Border Police for the projects' approval, although the Romanian delegation notified the managing authority on the need to do so. At the same time, the Managing Authority and the 2007 - 2013 Joint Technical Secretariat responsible for coordinating the technical evaluation, did not request the project leaders to correct the unrealistic outcome indicators estimated for the projects in question, although they had this possibility. In conclusion, the Hungarian managing authority committed several errors that cannot be blamed on the Romanian authorities," the release says.
The letter mentions that on the other hand, "in the context of the postponement of Romania's Schengen accession which would have eliminated the need for control at the Romania - Hungary border, the permanent operation of the cross-border connections would not be possible unless border checkpoints compliant with Schengen standards were set up, with substantial expenditure that would be unnecessary for an infrastructure which would become virtually useless after Romania's accession."
"Under these circumstances, the Governments of Romania and Hungary signed on July 24, 2014 in Bucharest an agreement allowing the occasional access on the mentioned roads, with the prior approval of the authorities, before Romania's Schengen accession as a provisional solution to ensure the use of respective roads," reads the document.
The letter goes on to state that "the Romanian authorities intend to further analyze, together with the Hungarian side, the situation of these roads, in order to identify solutions for their optimum use."