Brussels, 12/11/2010 (Agence Europe) - France is hoping to delay until the summer of 2011 the EU's decision on Romania and Bulgaria being allowed to join the Schengen Area. On Wednesday, French European Affairs Minister Pierre Lellouche told the French parliament (National Assembly)'s European Affairs Committee that France had to remain highly vigilant about extending the Schengen Area to Bulgaria and Romania, which hope to join in March. He warned that allowing Romania and Bulgaria to join Schengen should not be the automatic outcome of the current technical evaluation process that has been ongoing for two years now. He is reported by AFP as saying that like the Netherlands, France wants the decision to be postponed at least until the publication in the summer of 2011 of the European Commission's report on implementation of the cooperation and verification mechanism. Lellouche said that the main problems were genuinely effective monitoring of the EU's external borders and the fight against corruption, describing the Commission's regular reports as disturbing. He talked about the rise in illegal immigration that has been observed via Turkey to the borders of Bulgaria and Romania. He pointed out that the border between Romania and Moldova is badly monitored because Romanian passports are issued to people from outside Romania. He described the separatist Transnistria region as a black hole and pointed out the high levels of corruption in bordering Ukraine. Lellouche added that the decision to allow Bulgaria and Romania to join the Schengen area would need to be taken by a unanimous vote at the EU Council of Ministers. (B.C./transl.fl)