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The extension of the Schengen area is not on the agenda of the Council of Justice and Internal Affairs (JAI) for Thursday and Friday, even after Wednesday's meeting of the Committee of Permanent Representatives to the European Union ( COREPER), when the JHA's provisional agenda could still have undergone changes.
Thus, according to the website of the EU Council, the agenda includes, in the non-legislative activities section, 'The general situation of the Schengen area' (The operation of the Schengen area and the future of visa policy) and 'The entry into operation of the consolidated Schengen Information System (SIS)', but not the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to Schengen.
Thursday's meeting is the first official meeting of the JHA Council after the one in December when Romania and Bulgaria failed, only Croatia being accepted in Schengen. In the case of Romania and Bulgaria, there was no unanimity, although the two countries met all the necessary technical conditions, something recognized by the European Commission since 2011, including following the evaluations made by European experts. The opposition came from Austria and the Netherlands, the latter specifying that Bulgaria is not yet ready to enter Schengen.
In the opinion of the MEP Victor Negrescu (S&D), the absence of the Schengen extension from the agenda of the JAI Council on Thursday and Friday makes it difficult for the process of re-launching the debate on the accession to the Schengen space during this year, as a new strategy is needed to achieve this objective for our country until the 2024 European Parliament elections.
For his part, MEP Dragos Tudorache (Renew Europe) is of the opinion that Romania should have a strategy together with Bulgaria with a view to joining the Schengen area, being at the same time extremely important not to remain anchored in the logic in which as long as the migration file is not closed, the subject of Schengen cannot be discussed. He believes that Romania's main strategy must be to convince the Netherlands to work on a scenario in which Romania and Bulgaria together obtain a calendar and concrete steps to reach the desired decision.AGERPRES
