Migration is a problem that Austria is facing, which Romania did not cause, our borders being secure, but we are willing to contribute to solving it, and we are waiting for more openness on the part of Austria, Romanian MEP Siegfried Muresan, vice-president of the European People's Party (EPP) group, declared for AGERPRES on Wednesday in Brussels.
"At the debate in the plenary sitting of the European Parliament last week, the Prime Minister of Sweden, Ulf Kristersson, gave me assurances that Sweden is ready to put Romania's accession to the Schengen area on the agenda of the EU Council. I publicly asked him, in my speech in the plenary session of the European Parliament, that Romania's accession remain on the EU agenda, and the prime minister answered me by saying that he understands our disappointment, the Romanians, and that Sweden is prepared to raise this issue on the agenda. So, we have the support of the Swedish Presidency (of the EU Council),'' said Muresan.
He reminded that, from a technical point of view, Romania has been meeting the conditions to enter Schengen since 2011, something reconfirmed last year by two independent European missions that traveled to Bucharest. "From a political point of view, Romania made very important progress last year, managing to convince 26 out of 27 member states to vote for our accession. We will continue to work closely with all the member states, but also at the level of the European institutions in order to reach the best solutions for managing the migration problem and to convince Austria to support our accession. But we also expect the Austrian Government, especially Prime Minister Nehammer, to give up the anti-European electoral speech. By continuing this speech, the Austrian prime minister is only making it more difficult to solve the migration problem", continued the MEP.
He also referred to the recent statements of Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer according to which the Schengen area is currently non-functional as immigrants continue to come to Europe and, in this context, an extension of Schengen would not be justified for the time being.
"When the Government of Austria declares that it opposes the extension of the Schengen area and the accession of Romania under the pretext that the Schengen area is non-functional, it forgets to say that exactly 5 minutes before it had voted for the accession of Croatia to the Schengen area, therefore for the extension of the Schengen area. The arguments brought by Prime Minister Nehammer in the last months have no concrete basis, they are not supported by concrete, real figures, they only have an electoral purpose. He also visited Bulgaria for electoral purposes. As I anticipated and as I publicly declared before the visit, Prime Minister Nehammer went to Bulgaria only to make his election campaign in Austria with European money. Karl Nehammer declared in Bulgaria that he wants us to use European funds to strengthen the border between Bulgaria and Turkey. We must remind the Austrian chancellor that Austria was one of the four EU member states whose governments were most opposed to the increase in the European budget in the past. Austria has always had as its priority only the reduction of the EU budget and not the allocation of money where it is really needed'', the Romanian MEP said in the statement for AGERPRES.
Siegfried Muresan argued that "demanding that the EU budget do more and fighting in parallel to reduce the budget is populist". "You cannot ask for more money on the one hand and oppose a bigger budget on the other. In the current EU budget, all the money is already planned. If Mr. Nehammer wants 2 billion EUR more for Bulgaria, then let him say where he gets it. If it wants to increase the EU budget, that would be a good thing, but it is a position contrary to the position that Austria has supported and continues to support in all budget discussions at the European level. I hope that this speech will disappear after the elections'' [in the state of Lower Austria on January 29], he stressed.
In his opinion, it is not normal for a head of government to decide the entire European policy of the country "starting from his own, electoral interests, regarding a single region". "In the European Union we have 27 member states with 242 regions. If every prime minister would block the decision-making process in Europe taking into account only the electoral interests he has regarding certain local, regional or national elections, we would no longer take any important decision at the European level'', argued the Romanian MEP.
Asked if he considers that the plan presented by the Commission on Tuesday regarding increasing the efficiency of the return of immigrants will help to change the position of countries (especially Austria) reluctant to the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to Schengen, the vice-president of the European Parliament group of the EPP recalled that migration is a priority of both the Swedish presidency of the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament.
"We will have a debate next week in the European Parliament on the topic of migration and asylum, in preparation for the extraordinary European Council meeting on February 9-10. In addition, an informal meeting of EU interior ministers is scheduled in Stockholm tomorrow and the day after, which will also have the topic of migration on the agenda. Also, the European Commission yesterday presented a plan regarding the more efficient return of immigrants outside the European Union, as part of the new European Plan on Asylum and Migration. We will work on the basis of this plan in the negotiations between the European Parliament and the EU Council on making operational the common EU system for returns, as one of the solutions to the migration problem. It is clear that we need close coordination at the European level to solve this problem. There is openness, as you can see, from the European institutions to find these solutions together as quickly as possible. In this sense, Romania has expressed on several occasions its willingness to work with European partners, including Austria, to manage the situation of immigrants arriving in Europe. We will support all European solutions to the migration crisis. I have said it in the past and I repeat it: Romania is not the source of the illegal migration that Europe is facing. It never was. Our borders are well secured. We have reliable data from European institutions that confirm these things. But, in the spirit of the European values that unite us, we are with our partners who face this problem", concluded MEP Siegfried Muresan.
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