A conclusion on the “impact or lack of impact of using the Schengen theme” in Austria “can be easily drawn” after the historic defeat suffered in Sunday’s election by Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), which blocked Romania’s accession to Schengen on December 8, the foreign minister said. of affairs of Romania Bohdan Aurescu.

• “We see the results of the elections in Austria. Of course, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, I cannot comment on the results of internal elections in another country, but these results are very clear.
• I think it’s easy to draw a conclusion about the impact or lack of impact of using the Schengen theme in Austria, in this campaign or in this electoral context,” Bohdan Aurescu said on Monday.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs said that “the most important thing” is for the authorities to continue the “constructive dialogue” and all the steps started with Austria, he recalled the conversation between Klaus Iohannis and the President of Austria and the re-sending of the Romanian ambassador to Vienna. , Emil Khurezyanu, “an opening gesture appreciated by the Austrian side.”

Can the result of the elections in Austria change the position of the Austrian government regarding the accession of Romania?

When asked whether the result of the Austrian election could to some extent change the position of the government in Vienna regarding Romania’s accession to Schengen, Aurescu replied, as reported by News.ro, that “this is an assessment that the authorities in Vienna must make first of all after these elections”:

• “I repeat, I do not want to comment much on these results, because it is not appropriate from my position of Minister of Foreign Affairs. But, as you know, we made all gestures of openness in the direction of constructive dialogue.
• I also made it clear that Romania’s position is to support measures to strengthen the management of the European Union’s external borders, measures to combat illegal migration, to make the external borders of the European Union more secure, even if Romania does not accept an artificial link between this topic, especially regarding illegal immigration from Austria and the extension of the Schengen area with Romania and, accordingly, Bulgaria.

Aurescu reiterated that he had spoken to more than two-thirds of his colleagues from the 23 voting states in the Justice and Home Affairs Council and that there were “messages of support and confirmation of support from around 15 European foreign and business ministers”. from these states”, while the Swedish Presidency of the Council of the EU is “extremely determined” to support Romania: “I had these discussions both at the level of the Presidency and with the Prime Minister of Sweden, as well as with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden, I discussed with him several times . Practically, we have full support from Sweden, which will launch the consultation process in the next period.”

In Sunday’s election in Lower Austria, the traditional parties, the conservative ÖVP and the social democrats SPÖ, suffered historic defeats, while the far-right won, Euractiv said.

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehhammer explained that the disastrous result of the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) in the regional elections held on Sunday was mainly caused by the last “years of crisis”, reports Puls24. The ÖVP reached 39.8%, its weakest result since 1945, and lost its absolute majority in the lower Austrian parliament and probably also in the regional government.

It will be recalled that Romania’s accession to Schengen was blocked by the Chancellor of Austria, who was accused of taking this step in order to increase his electoral score in the internal elections. Nehhammer rejected the idea that Austria’s veto could have been dictated by internal political motives, the Austrian chancellor called it an “absurd assumption” that there was a connection with the elections in Lower Austria.

After the JAI vote on 8 December, both Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehhammer and Interior Minister Gerhard Karner claimed that of the more than 100,000 immigrants or asylum seekers who arrived in Austria, 75,000 were not registered anywhere, and this must have happened when crossing Austria. external border of the EU. They claimed that many of the unregistered arrived via Romania or Bulgaria, contradicting the Romanian authorities.

Last week, Austria’s chancellor warned that Vienna would maintain its veto against the extension of the Schengen zone until it “doesn’t work”: “The large number of migrants detained in Austria shows that the Schengen system is not functioning, and while this system and the protection of external borders doesn’t work, there can’t be an extension either.”