Austria’s tricked Romania with “Schengen” and it turned out to be a good lesson for Bucharest.
Although air and sea border controls were eliminated in March 2024, Austria has finally dropped its opposition to the elimination of land border controls and Romania will join Schengen on January 1,2025, writes Alex Todericiu for B1 TV.
For too long, Romanian politicians have kept up their public narrative that the country has long fulfilled all the necessary conditions for joining the free movement area, and only various EU capitals have been opposing us. The biggest capitals really dodged the issue, while others opposed us, but Bucharest was not exactly fully prepared either. Vienna was the final obstacle.
This obstacle fell when we stopped playing the victim, with all the emotional but popular excess that entails. The Romanian media called it a boycott from December 2022-January 2023, a woeful attitude that is as harmful as it is unnatural for a people that considers itself to be sovereign.
The last stronghold was conquered when the Interior Minister in Bucharest became a competent and level-headed lawyer. A master of several foreign languages, he read the thick case file and was able to carefully and timely differentiate the substance from the form, which was often misleading.
Romania’s ambassador in Vienna also brought precious backup. Emil Hurezeanu is a thoroughbred intellectual, a fine connoisseur of the German language and the behavioral dialects of the Austrians, a wise and balanced diplomat who managed to become the link between the various decision-making centers of Bucharest to solve the “burning issue”. It is thanks to him (for some time) and his daring efforts to “captatio benevolentiae” (capturing someone’s goodwill in order to obtain advantages) with the ÖVP, the Austrian People’s Party, for breaking the ice of the Viennese refusal.
Our “step by step” Schengen which came about by gaining the trust of public figures, the the Viennese politicians of today and yesterday, is the merit of our skillful ambassador who shares the success of the team with the lawyer and steadfast Minister Cătălin Predoiu. After that comes other government officials, including Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu who lobbied successfully with the Social Democrats camp. Today’s success after 13 years of trying is last but not least thanks to the patience of the Romanian people. Congratulations!
They’re in! Bulgaria and Romania finally admitted to Schengen after long wait
