Romania deserves to join the Schengen area, emphasizes Nicolae Ciuca – and will take steps to achieve this goal in 2023. Data from European institutions also do not confirm the figures on migration presented by the Austrian Minister of the Interior.
Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca described Austria’s veto of the country’s Schengen membership as “unfair” at a press conference at the Romanian embassy in Paris on Thursday night. Ciuca said Romania deserves to join the Schengen area and will now take steps to reach that target in 2023, according to the Romanian news agency Agerpres, as President Klaus Iohannis also said at the EU summit on Thursday.
Ciuca also emphasized that data provided by European institutions such as Frontex, Europol or Eurodac would not confirm the migration figures announced by the Austrian Ministry of the Interior. Rumanian citizens’ decisions regarding Austrian companies were to be respected, but the government wanted to change the Austrian position through diplomatic channels.
“Don’t have a diplomatic crisis”
After Austria’s veto, there were numerous calls for a boycott of Austrian companies in Romania. For example, the ministries led by the Socialist Co-Rulers (PSD) encouraged several state-owned companies and subordinate authorities to close their accounts with the Austrian banks represented in Romania, which would have happened in many cases. However, President Iohannis immediately called for restraint. At the EU summit, too, the president was visibly trying to calm the seething emotions. He “never got the impression that a diplomatic crisis or anything like that was looming. We won’t have anything like that,” Iohannis said, according to Agerpres.
(APA)