Romania has failed to join Schengen again, and next year there is almost no chance, because member states have as priority the elections for the European Parliament and then the election of a new European Commission, MEP Eugen Tomac said in a Facebook post on Monday, accusing the Romanian state and its top representatives of a series of mistakes.
The MEP from the European People's Party group in the European Parliament (EP) brings to mind that the provisional agenda of the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council meeting on 17 November included a possible vote on Romania's and Bulgaria's Schengen accession, which is missing from the final document adopted on 1 December.
The agenda adopted on 1 December includes under non-legislative activities the item "Council Decision on the full application of the provisions of the Schengen acquis in Romania and Bulgaria" with the mention "state of play," namely the discussion of the state of play of the file.
"After the humiliating vote last year on 8 December, all the decision-makers - the President, the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the National Liberal Party (PNL) leaders, the then and now leaders of the government - have been so proudly claiming that Romania will definitely join Schengen in 2023. Here we are at the end of the year with the last JHA Council meeting and we notice that Romania, with its 20 million Romanian citizens, is still outside the EU borders," Tomac says in his post.
The MEP argues that the Romanian state made at least three mistakes in 2023, avoiding taking actions that could have paved the way for Romania's Schengen accession.
Firstly, Tomac argues, "Romania's Government should have taken the Council of the European Union to the Court of Justice of the European Union." The EPP MEP is the initiator of an action in his own name at the CJEU against the Council of the EU after the JHA Council decision last year.
Then, he says, Romania and Bulgaria should have had a common approach in the negotiations with all states.
"We went on different strategies when the vote is a package deal for both states. Therefore, the Dutch vote against Bulgaria is automatically against us. The interior ministers of both countries should have had a common strategy and act as one. The lack of coordination in the smallest details allowed Nehammer (Austria's Chancellor Karl Nehammer) to be even more radical in his absurd position against Romania," Tomac believes.
Thirdly, he accuses President Klaus Iohannis of having been "completely absent."
"The head of state had the most effective instrument with which he could have changed the evolution of this file of major interest for Romania. He is a member of the European Council, where he should have put this subject on the agenda. The enlargement of the Schengen area is no longer a bilateral issue, but a European issue," he added.
AGERPRES