Justice report "essential for Romania’s Schengen accession"

According to the Novinite, president of the European Affairs Committee in Bundestag Gunther Krichbaum says that the accession of the two countries is conditioned by the progress they made, registered by the monitoring mechanism on Justice in the areas under the scrutiny of the European Commission.

Bulgaria and Romania did not manage to join the Schengen Area in March as previously established, because of some discontents with regards to customs’ security.

In addition, the two countries encountered political resistance from states which are key members of the European Union, as France, Germany and the Netherlands, whose Governments urged that the Balkan countries’ accession to the Schengen Area should be conditioned by the results of the post-accession monitoring, conducted in the problem zones, which deal with organized crime and judicial reforms.

"Germany’s position with regards to Romania and Bulgaria’s accession to the Schengen Area will be decided after the Justice report issued by the European Commission is made public this summer. If the report is positive, Germany will have no intention of opposing to Bulgaria’s accession", Gunther Krichbaum explained during his visit in Sofia.

The German official claims that the two countries might to join the Schengen Area by he end of the year.

In the fore mentioned context, the president of the European Affairs Committee in Bundestag offered as example the situation in Romania.

He made reference of the progresses registered in the fight against corruption, mentioning the controls at Romania’s customs of late, which generated numerous arrests.

"I will give you as example the situation in Romania. When authorities realized that the accession to the Schengen Area would be postponed, there were organized more controls at the customs, an operation which led to the arrest of more that 200 customs workers, suspected of corruption", Gunther Krichbaum concluded.

Border controls in the Schengen Area could be strengthened

In an interview for the French newspaper Le Figaro, German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich stated that Germany supports the French initiative to strengthen national border controls in the Schengen Area.

"The French suggestion consists in rendering more flexible the Shengen Agreement, which has a gap: it doesn’t deal with the case where an EU member state does not comply with the obligation of protecting its own external borders. We support the French initiative, which is aimed at dealing with this issue."

"It is important that the system is strengthened in order to deal with emergency situations", the German official explained during a meeting of G-8 Interior Ministers in Paris.

As the French authorities suggested on Wednesday, the European Commission proposed the idea of restoring border controls in the Schengen Area more easily.

The debate on this matter will take place in the extraordinary meeting of Interior Ministers, held on 12 May in Brussels.

Translated by: Mihaela Grigoraş
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University