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At the negotiations within the Council of Justice and Home Affairs, Austria proposed several postponements for next year of Romania's accession to Schengen, provided that our country does not insist on a vote in Thursday's meeting, according to sources familiar with the file.
Within the JHA Council, the states were consulted regarding the voting intentions regarding the accession of Romania and Bulgaria from January 1 with the land borders and from March 26 with the air borders, and on this occasion Austria declared against the accession of both countries, and the Netherlands only against Bulgaria.
In this context, the Czech minister of the Interior, Vit Rakusen, found that there is no unanimity and requested a break to try to reach a compromise. The representatives of the Commission, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Romania participated in the consultations, the quoted sources claim.
The first option that Austria proposed was to take a decision next year, in September or October, on the condition that the Thursday vote no longer takes place, an option rejected by Romania.
After that, a separate proposal was made for Bulgaria to go through a conditionality process, including a CVM. Practically, this option would have assumed that Romania joins Schengen this year without fulfilling other conditions, and Bulgaria next year, with these conditions. The variant was however refused by Bulgaria, claim the quoted sources.
The third option proposed by Austria was to make a decision in June, which would have meant voting and raising the borders at the same time. The condition was also that Romania would not insist on a vote, on Thursday, in the JHA Council. The variant was rejected by Romania.
Practically, Romania advanced one only option in which it would have agreed not to vote on Thursday, namely the adoption of a declaration stating that a decision on accession will be made by the end of the year, possibly at the next Council of Ministers on December 21, as point A, without debate. Such a variant would have involved entry into Schengen with air borders on March 26 and road borders later. However, Austria rejected this counterproposal.
Under these conditions, Romania requested separation from Bulgaria, but the neighbouring state opposed it and the new point could not be included on the agenda. Romania finally asked for a vote and Austria voted against the accession of Romania and Bulgaria, and the Netherlands only for Bulgaria.
When explaining the votes, the Dutch minister Eric van der Burg wanted to specify that the vote was on merit and that if it was a separate decision in the case of the two states, the Netherlands would have voted for Romania.
According to the quoted sources, at the meeting the representative of Spain would have said that the EU unity was destroyed by this vote, and the Polish minister stated that it is inadmissible that two member states have been mocked for 11 years.AGERPRES
