The EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, reaffirmed that Romania and Bulgaria meet all the EU criteria to become members of the Schengen area, stressing that this was also very clear after additional verification missions carried out by the Commission before the last Council of Justice and Home Affairs, but at the same time it is important that the Schengen area works well, according to Agerpres.

Bulgaria and Romania have nothing more to do to be able to enter the Schengen area. But for other reasons, unrelated to this, we must, of course, have a well-functioning Schengen area and, for example, I am concerned about the situation where, in Austria, for example, 75% of those who arrive illegally were not registered before arriving in this country. In the Netherlands, 90% of the illegal immigrants who arrive there have not been registered before, and of course the fact of having a good functioning of the registration of people who enter it is also part of the Schengen acquis, said Ylva Johansson in an interview given in Brussels to the press agencies that are part of the European Newsroom (enr), including Agerpres.

She emphasized that, for these reasons, it is important that all those involved focus on how they can have a better functioning Schengen area that also includes data on returns, according to the EU’s Dublin Regulation, which states that migrants be expelled to the country through which they first entered the community block and their asylum requests be administered there.

So, this is an aspect for which we can do more on the part of the Commission and I am convinced that we will manage to have a decision on the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to Schengen quite soon, said Ylva Johansson.

The Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bogdan Aurescu, recently declared that Romania will continue to be part of the solution for strengthening security, for the effective protection of the external border of the European Union and that Romania „has a constructive approach regarding the support of adoption and implementation, at European level, of measures to concretely combat the phenomenon of illegal migration at the external borders of the European Union, which must be strengthened”.

„This is Romania’s position, even if we reject the artificial connection between the accession to Schengen and the developments at the European level in terms of illegal migration,” pointed out the Romanian chief diplomat.

Agerpres