The last Justice and Home Affairs (JAI) Council of the Swedish EU Council Presidency begins on Thursday in Luxembourg, and the accession of Romania and Bulgaria is not on the agenda. The leadership of the EU bloc will be taken over by Spain, a country facing early elections. The outgoing government was a clear supporter of Romania’s accession to the Schengen zone, and already had contacts at the highest level with the Austrian side to try to reach a consensus, explains Romanian MEP Victor Negrescu.

He said on Wednesday for Agerpres that it is important for Romania to ensure that among the priorities set by the EU Council for the next 12 months is the accession of our country to the Schengen area, because only in this way will it be guaranteed to discuss the topic again next year and keep it in at the forefront of the European agenda.

In the presence of the ministers of interior affairs of the member states of the European Union, as well as with the participation of the ministers of interior affairs of Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein, the meeting of the JAI Council will take place in Luxembourg on Thursday and Friday. This is the last one organized during Sweden’s presidency of the European Union. The preliminary agenda of the JAI Council for Thursday includes a discussion of the general situation in the Schengen area, based on the European Commission’s 2023 report on the state of the free movement area, with a proposal to adopt a free movement strategy. traffic in the EU during the next 12 months.

Romania’s accession to Schengen – three scenarios

• “Unfortunately, during the last months, the Swedish presidency did not offer a clear perspective regarding our country’s accession to the Schengen zone. At the moment, we have no consensus and we have no changes in Austria’s position regarding Romania’s accession to the free movement zone,” said the Romanian MEP.

According to him, the agenda item of the JAI, which concerns the general situation in the Schengen area, which will discuss this year’s European Commission (EC) report on the subject, which mentions, among other things, the need to expand the area of ​​free movement with Romania and Bulgaria is important

• “Then the priorities for the Schengen area for the next 12 months and how the mechanisms of the functioning of the Schengen area will be monitored will be discussed, and it would be important for Romania to ensure that the expansion of the Schengen area and Romania’s entry into the free movement area are among the priorities adopted by the Council .
• This is the only way we can have a guarantee of discussing this topic again in the next 12 months and keeping this topic on the European agenda,” the PSD MEP told Agerpres.

In his opinion, there are now three scenarios for Romania’s accession to Schengen, of which even the most optimistic one no longer sounds as good as it did a few months ago.

The optimistic version is that Spain, which will preside over the EU Council from July, will be able to reach a consensus, and there will be a positive vote at the meetings that will take place before the end of the year. Here, however, there is a problem: early elections in Spain, scheduled by Pedro Sánchez for July 23, the first month of Spain’s upcoming presidency. “The outgoing government was a clear supporter of Romania’s accession to the Schengen zone, and already had contacts at the highest level with the Austrian side, trying to reach a consensus,” he added.

A second possible scenario is that the topic will not be discussed before the European elections in 2024, but only after the appointment of the next European Commission, that is, “to have this topic that Romania can eventually impose on the next European leadership formula” when forming the guidelines structures and appoints persons to the most important positions at the European level.

Worst case scenario for Romania and Schengen accession

The third scenario, the most gloomy, assumes that the topic will completely disappear from the European agenda, that there is no clear prospect for a new vote, and that the topic launched by the right-wing parties in Austria about the existence of migration flows that would pass through Romania to impose itself and damage Romania’s image, pushing the prospect of entry into an unclear situation, Negrescu also confirmed.

In practice, the member of the European Parliament from PSD admits, this may lead to a situation where Romania’s accession to Schengen will not be decided even in the first half of 2025, when the EU Council will be chaired by Poland, the first country that tried in 2011 to get a consensus in the JAI Council regarding the accession of our country to the free movement zone.

• “If this happens, unfortunately, we will practically see that the unanimity voting system cannot work in this regard. And it will also be seen that, unfortunately, despite the statements of all the member states, no state has managed to reach the consensus we need on this issue, and we must carry out a deep reform in everything that means the way of solving European issues. “, – said Negrescu.
• “In this sense, we also have to use the way we vote in the Council, we also have to use legal instruments, especially the Court of Justice of the European Union, use for example the report that I will prepare in the 2nd part. year in the European Parliament, which will ask member states to justify their veto on the basis of strong legal arguments. And there are many other mechanisms by which Romania can act much more directly, imposing its point of view,” explained the PSD MEP.

“There is still a long way to go”

We will remind you that on December 8, 2022, the Council of Justice and Home Affairs (JAI) of the European Union rejected the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to Schengen and accepted only the request of Croatia. Austria managed to block a favorable decision for our country in the JAI Council, because unanimity is required for entry into Schengen. It was joined by the Netherlands on the condition that they oppose the accession of Bulgaria, and the vote was cast “together with Romania”.

After blocking Romania’s entry into Schengen, 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 that this must have happened when crossing the EU’s external border. They claimed that many of the unregistered arrived via Romania or Bulgaria, contradicting the Romanian authorities.

On April 26, Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner, who blocked Romania’s entry into Schengen, was in Bucharest and told Romanians that he was “very sympathetic” to their expectations, that the authorities had made progress in securing borders and managing migration, but there was more to come. “long way”.

An official from Vienna said that “Austrian citizens face the same dilemma when they are subject to checks in Germany.”

He repeated the same figures he used to prevent Romania from joining Schengen: last year, more than 110,000 people entered Austria illegally, of which more than 80,000 were unregistered, and the border protection system still does not work. He said he saw “great things” at the Romanian border police headquarters, that Romania “has made progress and is on the right track, but there is still a long way to go:

• “I am very sympathetic to the minister’s complaint and to the expectations of the Romanian people regarding the next phase of Schengen accession, but at the moment you have to think that Austrian citizens have the same dilemma when they are subject to controls with Germany.
• You have made great progress, you are on the right track, but we have to tell you that there is still a long way to go.”

When asked persistently by Romanian journalists whether Austria will vote for Romania’s accession to the Schengen area this year, an Austrian official said that he could not give a date on this matter:

• “I will tell you frankly: for my part, I cannot tell you today’s date. First of all, I want to achieve results so that the EU is protected in the area of ​​external borders.”
• “I can only repeat: I cannot talk to you about the date, we are still far from the point where we can say that the system is working, and therefore I am fighting with many partners together so that the system can be improved.”
• Gerhard Karner’s visit to the capital of Romania took place in the context of the fact that a number of EU member states sent signals from Bucharest itself that Romania should join the Schengen area this year.

• Arriving in Bucharest, the Minister of the Interior of Austria remains in the same position: I cannot tell you the date of accession to Schengen. The room is not functional