AGERPRES special correspondent to Brussels, Belgium, Florin Stefan reports:

Romanian MEPs in the largest political groups in the European Parliament still believe, to varying degrees, in Romania’s chance of joining the Schengen area in the second half of the current year – when the presidency of the EU Council will be held by Spain – but they see differently the path to follow for that to happen, adopting positions from „there is no strategy” to support the approach to „let the officials work in peace.”

MEP Dacian Ciolos, from the Renew group, said that, in his opinion, „there is still a chance, but it is much, much weaker than it was at the beginning of the year.”

„Already the subject has practically disappeared from the European agenda. Romania is trying to maintain it, but with the same people who registered a failure a few months ago,” Ciolos told a group of Romanian journalists in Strasbourg.

Dacian Ciolos also said that, given that the pilot projects launched at the beginning of the year at the Romanian-Serbian and Turkish-Bulgarian borders are behind schedule, a possible strategy of betting on their results to convince Austria and the Netherlands to change their position could prove to be a failure.

On the other hand, he said that, as far as he knows, there are discussions between the governments of Bulgaria and the Netherlands about the possibility of withdrawing the veto of the Netherlands following a positive assessment of Bulgaria in the EU report on the rule of law „and then leaving Austria isolated and possibly with political pressure or other means to convince Austria.”

Ciolos also says that „Romania should be much firmer at European level, very firm and clear, not to block the European Union, as other states do, but until blocking certain decisions there are levers to make it very clear to others that you too are a member state that matters and that decisions that are important for you must be important for others as well.”

He described as an opportunity for Romania the fact that Ylva Johansson, the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, remains with the personal objective of obtaining a favourable decision on the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the Schengen area by the end of her mandate.

„The Spanish government is a socialist government, Ylva Johansson is a socialist, we have a socialist party in the government, other levers can be used and there is a small chance, but in my view, if some things are not done and if the pressure is not maintained, it can be reduced,” Ciolos said.

„When we negotiated the elimination of visas for Romanian citizens in Canada, we kept up the pressure for seven to eight months, without it necessarily showing up in the media. (…) So, if you just wait, it won’t happen, because everyone has their own objectives,” Ciolos added.

The Renew MEP reiterated that Romania should have, from the highest level, mobilised all the political resources it has and said that he would have expected to be asked for support.

„Each of us has channels. I would expect to see such a task force at the highest political level in Romania, to give a signal that all political forces are mobilising their resources. So, we, the REPER MEPs and I would say in fact all the Romanian MEPs in the Renew group (…) had some very clear and firm positions towards our colleagues in the Dutch delegation and towards Mark Rutte in order to obtain the decision not to oppose Romania,” said Ciolos.