Weber Remarks About Schengen Enlargement Alarm Romania

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Weber Remarks About Schengen Enlargement Alarm Romania

Remarks about Schengen Area enlargement attributed to Manfred Weber have added to Romania's fears that it may be excluded from any planned expansion of the passport-free zone – with Bulgaria joining it alone.
Madalin Necsutu
BIRN Bucharest


A view of a Schengen sign in the village of Schengen, Luxembourg, 01 February 2016. Photo: BIRN/Julien Warnand
Recent remarks cited by Bulgaria media attributed to the candidate of the European People's Party for the presidency of the European Commission, Manfred Weber, concerning Bulgaria's likely accession to the Schengen Area in 2019, have sparked anxiety in Romania.

Although the European Commision has not confirmed the remarks, critics of Romania's government are blaming its weak governance record for Romania's apparent ommission from the plan.

Bulgarian media reports said Weber had made the predictions at a meeting in Brussels with the vice-president of the ruling Bulgarian GERB party, Tsvetan Tsvetanov.

Weber has been one of the most critical voices in Brussels about the Social Democrat-led government in Romania and about the changes it has made to justice laws in the past two years.

The two countries have always been in the same "package" for entering the passport-free zone, but negative evaluations of judicial changes in Romania, portraying it as a country that is backsliding on justice and the rule of law, may have changed things.

"The difference between Romania and Bulgaria on Schengen issues can be interpreted as a critique that the EU applies to Romania for the actions that the Romanian government has undertaken in the field of justice," Romanian political analyst Bogdan Nedea told BIRN.

He argued that the current moment is very important because in January Romania takes over the Presidency of the EU Council and, instead of benefiting from this, the Romanian authorities have received another tough warning sign.

"A possible consequence may be for the EU to choose to continue the Schengen program with Bulgaria while ignoring Romania – which would deepen the Bucharest government's [challenging] stance towards the EU," said Nedea, who added that the government might now unveil new anti-EU policies.

While the government continues its apparent drive to control and politically subordinate the judiciary, the Romanian President, Klaus Iohannis, had a meeting on Tuesday in Paris with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, with whom he discussed gaining the support of France for Romania's entry into the Schengen Area.

The Netherlands remains the main critic of Romania when it comes to possible new members of the Schengen Area.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in September in Bucharest that he agreed with his Romanian counterpart Viorica Dancila on a number of topics aimed at closer cooperation within the EU – but not on all discussed points, "such as Schengen."

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