Upcoming days to decide Schengen approval

Romania’s Schengen approval could be decided in the upcoming days, while the Evaluation Committee is assessing progress on border security, especially in airports.

A team of Committee experts will also analyze the justice situation in the cooperation and monitoring mechanism.

This is due to the harsh criticism Romania received in the last report on this topic, and to many European officials that have linked the Schengen approval to the next justice report, which should be issued in July 2011.

Cătălin Predoiu, Minister of Justice, says that many things have changed, comparing to the former document.

Since then, Romania founded the National Integrity Agency and passed the small reform law, meant to speed up judicial procedures, Cătălin Predoiu mentioned in a meeting with internal affairs and justice European commissioners, on Monday.

Evaluation mission, not "the end of the road"

‘The judicial system’s stability, its maturity, the efficiency of the Superior Council of Magistracy actions will be essential in the evaluation of judicial reform.

"The regulators"’ support, first of all by adopting the judicial system development strategy as a public service, by adequately financing the judicial budget in the following years, is also a very significant factor for the European Commission as far as Romania’s commitment towards judicial reforms is concerned,’ the Minister of Justice asserted.

As for the link that France, Holland, and the Germany make between the justice monitoring and cooperation mechanism and Romania entering the Schengen Area, the Romanian minister said things must be seen from a wider, more strategic perspective.

"I think that a structural and more intense cooperation between the French and Dutch partners is needed to explain to them, as I tried to explain the judicial progress to commissioners on Monday; exactly why a connection between the monitoring and cooperation mechanism and the Schengen plan is not valid, and how we can solve our overdue commitments in the bilateral cooperation," Cătălin Predoiu said.

The minister of Justice also said that Romania has taken and continues to take seriously its preparations for entering the Schengen Area and if all goes as planned it should enter in March 2011.

Translated by: Ciocănel Tudor-Alexandru
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University