If the Austrians want to exercise their political egos on the European Union in relation to the elections they have in January, then they should pay 200 million euros per month in losses to Romania’s economy, because we are not in the Schengen Area, President of the Association for Clean Energy and Combating Climate Change Razvan Nicolescu said on Thursday, according to Agerpres.

„It seems to me that two leaders from Austria, the chancellor and the Interior minister, are practically trying to take hostage all the values and principles of the European Union since the European Union was founded and not to respect anything anymore, because that’s what they want. I don’t think that things will remain as they are. From an economic point of view, I believe that Schengen is also an economic matter or is, perhaps primarily, an economic matter. It is also a matter of respect for 30 million Romanian and Bulgarian citizens. But it is an economic issue and if we don’t realize this, we have to go to all our border crossing points to the west and see there trailer trucks queuing for days to cross the border checkpoints,” Nicolescu told a press conference, organized by the National Council of Small and Medium Sized Private Enterprises in Romania (CNIPMMR).

He added that, based on an analysis carried out by a consulting company, each month of delay in Romania’s accession to Schengen means at least 200 million euros less in the country’s Gross Domestic Product,

„The same analysis shows that, in the 11 years that we have lost, the amount of losses to Romania’s GDP has been, in the updated value of money, of almost 25 billion euros. I think it is time to say that we cannot go on like this and if the Austrians want to exercise their political egos on the European Union in relation to the elections they have in January, in the regional elections, if they want to use the values of the European Union in the sense of not respecting them, they should eventually give this money – 200 million euros per month, losses for Romania’s economy. Including, beware, for many companies with mixed Romanian-Austrian capital or even Austrian companies doing business in Romania,” he said.

In his turn, the president of CNIPMMR, Florin Jianu, said that transporters within the organization he leads maintained that there is an extra cost of at least 200 euros per transport, due to Romania’s being denied Schengen entry.

CNIPMMR organized, on Thursday, a press conference in which proposals on the guaranteed minimum gross salary in 2023 were presented, among other things.

At the event, the CNIPMMR president, Florin Jianu, and Razvan Nicolescu, the president of of the Association for Clean Energy and Combating Climate Change, signed a collaboration protocol between the two entities.

Agerpres