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Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos voiced his conviction that the Canadian visa issue is solved, the visa requirement lifting going to be formally announced by the Canadian Government. "The Canadian Government must announce it formally, officially, but I have the full conviction that indeed, this problem is solved, and I have had this conviction some time now. (...) This matter has been left aside. I took this topic, I assumed this topic sometime this summer, when I decided to go to Canada and endorse this both in Romania's and in Bulgaria's, because this is it, we are dealt with as a bulk. And only Romania has made proactive demarches in relation with the Canadian Government. I had two direct meetings with the Canadian Prime Minister and several phone conversations in this period," the PM told Realitatea TV private television broadcaster on Thursday evening.
He said that he worked very well in this case with MEP Sorin Moisa, who has been and is involved in the CETA ratification in the European Parliament. "We have coordinated our actions so that we persuade the Canadians that the decision must be made now, before the CETA approval and not afterwards, because that was the Canadian Government's goal. (...) We insisted that the issue be solved now. We found a solution even after our Bulgarian friends accepted an alternative which we said it does not satisfy us. We continued the negotiations with dignity and determination and we managed to persuade our Canadian partners why it is important for the visa requirement lifting to happen in 2017 and not in 2018," the Prime Minister said.
