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The Austrian Chancellor, Karl Nehammer, "rejected any rational argument" regarding Romania's accession to the Schengen Area, is the conclusion communicated by MEP Eugen Tomac after the meeting of the European People's Party (EPP) held on Wednesday in Vienna, told Agerpres.
"It was one of the most tense political meetings I have ever had. Unfortunately, this man rejected any rational argument. He canceled everything the European Commission proposed, denied every report or statistic. He simply made an absurd decision. He just wants to humiliate Romania in an unacceptable way,' the EPP MEP wrote on Facebook on Wednesday evening.
According to him, the Austrian leader "stubbornly insists on some ridiculous arguments." "I told him directly, today, that he is very close to being the one who will cancel all the sympathy that the Romanians have cultivated over time in the relationship with Austria, a country that we have looked upon with great trust. Sooner or later, Romania will enter the Schengen Area, but this undeserved slap will not be easily forgotten by the more than 20 million Romanian citizens,' Tomac wrote.
Several Romanian MEPs participated on Wednesday in the EPP meeting on migration in Vienna, alongside the leader of the EPP group in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, also attended by Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer. The issue of Romania's accession to Schengen was also tackled at the meeting.
The discussion about the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the Schengen Area is not a political one, but a matter of security, the Austrian chancellor declared in a joint press conference with the EPP president, Manfred Weber, after the meeting.
I don't think we were properly heard in Brussels, but Austria has had to deal with over a hundred thousand migrants, 75,000 of whom were never registered. Thus, we have people crossing the borders by the thousands. Nobody knows where they're coming from, whether they're armed or not, whether they're drug traffickers or human traffickers. So it's a real security issue. That's exactly why Austria has this vision of the Schengen Area, Nehammer said, according to the recording of the conference from the EPP YouTube channel, the statements being translated into English.
Romania and Bulgaria are not part of the Schengen area, but this is not so much a political discussion as a matter of security. The stake is the security of our citizens. We have over 75,000 people who cross the borders of the European Union without being registered. This is a security issue. We can't sweep it under the rug, we have to talk about it, he added.
