Brussels, 14/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - The president of Romania, Traian Basescu, says he is deeply frustrated with the way the EU member states are refusing to let his country, along with Bulgaria, join the Schengen free movement zone.
After an meeting on Friday 14 February with the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, Basescu regretted that the cooperation and verification mechanism (CVM) was being abused politically and the most recent CVM report last month showed that institutions in Romania worked well and the country could easily be part of Schengen, he said. He criticised the way the CVM has been used against a member state, which is very difficult to accept. After the removal on 1 January 2014 of the final restrictions on Romanians entering the labour market around the EU, the country should be fully integrated into the EU, he argued. The EU Council of Ministers is not scheduled to discuss the enlargement of Schengen in the immediate future, although the matter is on the agenda for the JHA Council after the European elections. (SP/transl.fl)