Interior Minister Katalin Predoiu said Thursday night on his visit to Austria, which he declared “absolutely necessary,” that his Austrian counterpart Gerhard Karner’s statements about Vienna’s refusal to accept Romania’s accession to Schengen were “for political consumption” and that “there were statements, which are insufficiently translated.” “I think the game is going,” and “it’s important to play it at all levels,” Predoyu said.

Predoiu said on Digi 24 that the previous statements of the Austrian interior minister showed that Austria’s position has not changed regarding Romania’s accession to the Schengen area, but that “it is important to restart the game, to approach it constructively through the prism of common interests.”

• “Obviously, we weren’t there to say, ‘You’ve changed your mind.’ This would be an unprofessional approach to the file. It is necessary to leave this paradigm, one comes and asks, and the other refuses, because they have reached a dead end. It was important to restart the game, to approach it constructively through the prism of common interests. I mentioned that Romania and Austria have common interests. The Schengen file is not a simple dialogue between Romania and Austria, it is a multidimensional file containing components of migration, international cooperation, regional geopolitics, etc. It’s just very difficult,” said the minister.

Then “start build”

According to Predoi, the Austrian minister’s statements after the meeting with him “were statements of political consumption for his party, but they were also statements that were not sufficiently translated.”

• “He thanked Romania three times for the actions taken, such as the abolition of the clans. It was said that Austria has direct problems not with Romania, but with the European Commission. I put the migration figures on the table and they were not contested. Romania is showing good results in this regard,” Katalin Predoyu also noted.

Answering a question about whether Romania has a chance to enter the Schengen area, the minister said that “a lot of actions are being taken at different diplomatic levels.”

• “We have the assets, they need to be reproduced at the right time without announcing or making random valuations or to please public opinion. I’d rather be responsible than reckless. I think the match will be played. It is important to play at all levels and the economic component is very important. The business environment in Romania with Austrian capital is moving in the right direction,” concluded the Minister of Internal Affairs.

It will be recalled that the Minister of Internal Affairs, Katalin Predou, met on Wednesday in Vienna with his Austrian colleague, Gerhard Karner, who opposes Romania’s accession to Schengen.

The Austrian official’s message was “very clear”: Austria does not support the extension of the Schengen area, further stating that “the system as a whole does not work”.

Asked if Austria would change its position before the fall parliamentary elections, Gerhard Karner said Vienna’s veto had “nothing to do” with the election: “We are responsible for guaranteeing the safety of the population, and it is not about parliamentary elections.”