Adrian Cioroianu: Romania has real chance to join Schengen area next year

The former Minister of Foreign Affairs Adrian Cioroianu stated on Thursday that the vote given in the Council of Justice and Home Affairs against Romania's accession to the Schengen area was based on the "domestic policy" of Austria and Sweden and claimed that, in the course of next year, our country will have "a real chance" of receiving it.

"It is a result. We must accept it as such. From my point of view, what matters is what lessons we draw from here, and one of them is inevitably that the internal politics of the member states is a priority because every government is interested in the echo home of the votes it casts. That was the case in Austria and I suspect it was the same in the Netherlands. Because, finally, there were two votes against, no matter what the Netherlands says, it was a vote against," Cioroianu told AGERPRES.

"The second lesson we have to draw is that we cannot separate ourselves from Bulgaria, or, in any case, most of our European partners still see us in tandem, which is logical, given the length of the common border. If Romania had entered and Bulgaria had not, it would have created a big problem for us, because the Danube would have become a European border that we had to equip with what is necessary. For how long? Because we suspect that Bulgaria would have followed not long after us," Adrian Cioroianu pointed out.

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Cioroianu argued that "every country has its place on the map" and "we should not be angry with Croatia", a country admitted to Schengen on Thursday.

However, Adrian Cioroianu declared himself optimistic about our country's accession to the Schengen area, appreciating that "there are chances" in this regard.

"I think we won't wait 11 years like we have until now. During the next year there will be a real chance. It all depends on peace in Europe, because we cannot control that. But I think, anyway, we are closer to a solution than we have ever been," said Adrian Cioroianu.