Vlad Gheorghe MEP: European Commission obliged to assess Romania's losses for voting against Schengen accession
The European Commission is obliged to make a full assessment of the losses that Romania incurred for voting against Schengen accession at the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 8 December 2022 in Austria, Romanian MEP Vlad Gheorghe, who initiated this initiative, told Antena 3.
According to the European official, the Commission must come up with this assessment very quickly and, above all, set in motion the action against Austria.
"This resolution will be binding for the European institutions, it will not be directly binding for Austria, but this means that the European Commission is directly obliged to make a full assessment of the losses. I started from this 25 billion, but the text of the resolution says that the Commission should assess the losses until we actually enter Schengen and we can ask for those, at the moment they are estimated between 10 and 25 billion euros after independent assessments, but I think we should talk about several tens of billions of euros," said Vlad Gheorghe.
Vlad Gheorghe stressed that all countries that oppose Romania's accession to the Schengen area without any reason should pay. According to the Romanian MEP, this is a legal step, and if the Netherlands opposed it, it is liable, together with Austria, for the damage it causes to Romanians.
On 8 December 2022 Austria and the Netherlands voted against Romania and Bulgaria joining Schengen.
While the Netherlands then changed its mind and changed its position, Austria announced until the last moment that it was opposed to Romania and Bulgaria joining the European area of free movement.
Discussions on Romania's Schengen accession began after the Czech Republic - then holding the rotating EU presidency - announced on 7 September 2022 that it wanted Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia to join Schengen. The Justice and Home Affairs Council approved Croatia's accession to Schengen from 1 January 2023, but not Romania or Bulgaria.
