French Ambassador Supports Complete Schengen Accession for Romania
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The French ambassador to Bucharest, Nicolas Warney, has announced France's support for Romania's full accession to the Schengen Zone, including the inclusion of land borders.
Warney emphasised that this support is based on the coherence and political significance of Romania's bid.
The ambassador stressed that France sees the benefits of Romania's complete Schengen membership in enhancing security and addressing environmental concerns.
France supports the full accession of Romania to the Schengen Zone, French ambassador to Bucharest, Nicolas Warney, has said.
According to Warney, the full accession to Schengen of Romania, including with the land borders, is supported by the vast majority of the European Union.
France supports Romania’s Schengen bid “firstly, because it is coherent, because it is a political objective and because we clearly see the queues of cars, the queues of trucks at the land borders, and it is absurd in terms of the movement of people and goods, but also in terms of security and even regarding the environment.
Warney
Cited by Agerpres, the French ambassador to Bucharest, considered it absurd to see how trucks wait for days, stressing that France supports the complete membership of Bucharest to the borderless area of the EU as soon as possible, from all points of view.
At the beginning of December, I did not believe it would happen. We joined forces. In the middle of December, I said that it had to happen. At the end of the month, the decision was made. It was a great joy for many, and many were relieved, including the diplomats accredited here in Bucharest, among whom I am also.
French ambassador to Bucharest
He added that this is the first decisive stage, noting that the other one must follow, “so there is a discussion of as rapid as possible accession to the terrestrial Schengen area.”
The accession of Romania to the Schengen Zone was blocked by Austria in December 2022 over irregular migration concerns. However, in December last year, Sofia, Bucharest as well as Vienna agreed on Austria’s proposal called “Air Schengen”, consisting of four conditions for the membership of these two countries to Schengen.
However, recently, Austria’s Interior Minister, Gerhard Karner, said that when it comes to land border accession, Vienna continues to maintain its veto.
Considering the further expansion of Schengen in terms of land border controls, including Romania and Bulgaria, is inappropriate at this stage; Karner said that the matter goes beyond these two countries, referring to the migration situation.
Recently, Romanian MEPs Dacian Ciolos and Vlad Gheorghe, as well as Greek MEP Georgios Kyrtsos and Bulgarian MP Daniel Lorer, sent a letter to Greece’s Minister of Migration and Asylum, Dimitris Kairidis, calling him for the abolishment of land border controls as part of efforts to further ease the travel process during the summer season.