Brussels, 26/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - At the presentation on Tuesday 25 January of the Hungarian Presidency's Home Affairs priorities, several MEPs criticised the lack of willingness to cooperate shown by the Council which, they claimed, refuses to provide them with information on the assessment of the technical progress made by Romania and Bulgaria in their bid to join the Schengen area. Carlos Coelho (EPP, Portugal) said on Tuesday morning: “The Council has given us very little information on its technical reports. It hasn't even sent them to the shadow rapporteurs”. MEPs also raised the same problem with regard to PNR negotiations, conducted by the Commission with a mandate from the Council, which began with the United States and are now due to continue from the end of this month with Canada and Australia. Currently, the European Parliament has only a consultative role on Schengen but, under the terms of the Lisbon Treaty, will ultimately have competence in the review of the Schengen evaluation mechanism. For this reason, MEPs want to be more involved in Council efforts and to receive Council assessment reports. Their call is all the more pressing as, at the end of December, France and Germany indicated that the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to Schengen would be judged not only on technical criteria, but also political. This stance has already come in for criticism from EPP leader in the Parliament Joseph Daul, who, on 20 January, called for “clear, permanent and identical rules for all” and asked the Hungarian Presidency “swiftly” to reward the efforts made by the two countries and the Council to “adopt a constructive and responsible attitude”. As Hungarian Home Affairs Minister Sándor Pintér noted on Tuesday morning, Romania has met all the technical conditions for joining the Schengen area, but Bulgaria still has some weaknesses on the management of its land borders. So long as there is “no Schengen border between Romania and Bulgaria, Romania will not be able to join”, he went on to say. He noted Bulgaria's pledges to settle this matter as quickly as possible and before the end of April of this year. “Then, at that time, we will re-assess the situation”, Pintér said underlining, nevertheless, that unanimity of voting was required in this area and that, for the moment, “we do not know what impact the Franco-German position is likely to have”. (O.L./transl.rt)