PM Ciolacu on Schengen: We are waiting for the decision of the Netherlands on Bulgaria before taking a step

PM Ciolacu on Schengen: We are waiting for the decision of the Netherlands on Bulgaria before taking a step

Romania is currently waiting to find out whether the Netherlands will support Bulgaria’s accession to the European free movement area or not, before making its own decision in the Schengen file, the prime minister, Marcel Ciolacu, said on Monday.

The Council for Justice and Home Affairs (JHA), which will meet on December 4 and 5, does not have the topic of Romania’s and Bulgaria’s accession to Schengen on its agenda.

“The Netherlands had elections on November 22. The current prime minister didn’t have time to initiate the procedure of the vote in Parliament because of that. So it was almost certain that the topic would not be discusses at the JHA meeting on December 4-5. However, an extraordinary meeting of the Council will be convened in December especially for this topic, and this is already an item on the JHA agenda. We are first waiting for the Netherlands’ decision on Bulgaria and then we will see what our next step will be,” said the head of the Executive.

Regarding the recent dialogue between Romanian officials and Austria, Ciolacu said that he had “no direct talk with chancellor Nehammer.”

“We will, for sure, have some discussions, after I return to Romania. There have been talks at the ambassador level and other talks between Austrian and Romanian officials, including our minister of interior,” he said. AGERPRES