Minister of the Interior Catalin Predoiu declared on Monday that the Ministry under his direction has supplemented human, financial and logistical resources to the Border Police and has taken measures to better organize the protection of the state borders so that illegal migration is drastically reduced and is kept where it is today - "at almost nil".
"We have important bilateral programs underway with our neighbors, but also with the European Commission, we have programs through which we jointly protect the border, we have joint actions and teams, data centers and information sharing between border police services, maintaining permanent contact with all the Interior Ministers of Romania's neighboring countries precisely in order to keep this phenomenon under control," Predoiu said after meeting at the Ministry headquarters with European Commissioner for Home Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner.
Predoiu said that he personally visited the Bulgarian-Turkish border and was able to experience firsthand the efforts being made in that difficult area, targeted by international networks and organizations of migrant smugglers, whose members are well-seasoned and well-equipped, know the ground, have weapons and often attack border police.
"Part of these migration corridors from the south also pass through Serbia and we need to keep up the years-long good cooperation with our Serbian colleagues, and I wanted to make sure that it would continue. I wanted to make sure that Romania's border is protected," Predoiu told a press conference delivered together with the EU official.
According to him, the issue of migration is not a hot topic in Romania and is not the most important concern, also because our country is not intensely faced with this phenomenon.
"We manage to maintain border control. This way, we protect not only Romania, the national territory and the security of Romanian citizens, but we also protect the eastern and southeastern borders of the European Union. Hence the interest in discussing this with the European Commissioner," said Predoiu.
The Minister of the Interior added that the first mission to assess the way Romania operates the Schengen systems has been completed, and that the official report will be published in November. "I understood from Mr. Commissioner that it wouldn't bother him if I already mentioned publicly that it was a very good visit and that Romania passed this test with flying colors," Predoiu said.
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