AGERPRES special correspondent Oana Ghita, reports: Fact is that the Schengen area is no longer working, president Klaus Iohannis said on Thursday in Brussels, where he is participating in the European Council’s reunion, adding that Romania’s accession would make it safer, write Agerpres.

„We will see how the discussion on migration will go, because, in the end, you know very well that, through the care of a member state, the discussion on migration was linked to the discussion on Schengen. Unfortunately, because the topics are fundamentally different,” the president told a press conference.

Regarding the messages sent by Austria, the president commented: „It’s a little depressing to hear from Vienna as if an LP had broken a little there. The same text, in the conditions in which Romania performs very well in stopping illegal migrants”.

„We go on. I go on on the diplomatic line started, together with my whole team, and the Government is doing everything it can, but this dialogue is becoming more and more strange, under the conditions in which Austria always says that it has nothing against Romania or Bulgaria, but opposes the expansion of the Schengen area, under the conditions in which in exactly the same meeting it approved the accession of Croatia. So the arguments are at least dubious. And, under these conditions, we continue all the discussions. We know very well that we meet absolutely all the Schengen criteria,” he pointed out.

„On the other hand, and I have to say it, someone has to say it: The fact is that the Schengen area is no longer working. It is no longer working and there is almost no longer the Schengen area, because due to migration, which is quite important, many states have closed their borders. Even in our area, in the East of the Union, you know very well that several border closures have appeared successively. Someone might find that we want to enter into an agreement that no longer works. It’s a question we have to ask ourselves and the discussion on Schengen is older,” Iohannis added.

Moreover, added president, „the fact that Schengen has problems is known and on the one hand there is a desire to modernize the Schengen agreement, on the other hand there are some who oppose any extension”.

„I had this discussion with European leaders for years and I told them all: Romania would become a strong point of the Schengen area. Through Romania’s accession, the Schengen area would become safer, stronger and with Romania inside we can start with new energy to reform the Schengen area, to make it viable again and to give freedom of movement to European citizens. But there is still a lot to negotiate before we get there,” Klaus Iohannis concluded.