Austria – Austria remains firmly opposed to Romania and Bulgaria joining the Schengen area. Vienna believes that the area of free movement of people needs to be „improved” before it can be „enlarged”.
Vienna’s inflexible position
„Schengen must become better, not bigger. I don’t see much progress yet, so I can’t imagine any changes now”, says Gerhard Karner, Austria’s Minister of the Interior.
Gerhard Karner defends a tough stance on migration and raises the possibility of concluding an agreement with a non-EU country to outsource the processing of asylum applications.
„It is crucial that the European Commission finally invests massively in protecting the external borders and takes measures to make them more secure”, the Austrian minister stressed, because „this is ultimately what allows the Schengen system to function”.
The Netherlands also opposed to Romanian and Bulgarian accession
According to the Romanian side, the Netherlands is also doing everything it can to prevent Romania and Bulgaria from joining the Schengen area.
It would appear that the Netherlands is opposed to this for very concrete reasons, concerning its national and commercial interests. With Romania in the Schengen area, Romania and its Black Sea port of Constanța could seriously compete with the Dutch port of Rotterdam.
Romanian impatience and European obligations
The Romanian president has expressed his annoyance at this stalemate and has threatened to bring his country into Schengen in a savage manner, by simply opening the borders.
The situation still appears to be deadlocked, but these accessions seem inevitable, as the member countries of the European Union all have a duty to join the Schengen area of freedom of movement.
This conflict is highly paradoxical: at a time when a number of countries have embarked on a policy of tightening border controls. While Slovakia, Germany and Austria are re-establishing border controls, Romania and Bulgaria are doing their utmost to join the Schengen area as quickly as possible, even though everything points to an unprecedented crisis.
