Basescu: Romania Wants No Decoupling with Bulgaria for Schengen

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso (R) welcomes Romanian president Traian Basescu prior to a meeting at the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium 03 Febr EPA/BGNES

Romanian President Traian Basescu has ruled out a decoupling of Bulgaria and Romania with respect to their accession to the borderless Schengen Area.

In a statement Saturday, Basescu declared that Romania will not move to be decoupled from Bulgaria in order to join Schengen earlier even though Romania has met all technical requirements for accession, and Bulgaria has not done that yet.

"I am stating this clearly. We do not aim at a decoupling with Bulgaria. Even though it received positive reports as a whole, Romania ruled out the possibility of asking to be decoupled from Bulgaria," the Romanian President states.

Basescu's main argument is that Romania's accession to the Schengen zone on its own will mean that it will have to invest massive amounts of money and efforts in order to secure its border with Bulgaria under the standards for an external Schengen border.

As the countries have been expected to join Schengen together, Basescu says a decoupling will mean a very big and pointless investment since both Bulgaria and Romania will eventually become part of the Schengen Area.

On January 28, 2011, the Schengen Area evaluation group (Sch-Eval) postponed the adoption of two technical reports on Bulgaria, while adopting the report on Romania's Schengen accession. Romania has met all Schengen requirements, while Bulgaria still needs to fix some issues on its border with Turkey.

Bulgaria and Romania hoped to join the EU's border-free zone in March, but Germany and France have already urged Brussels to delay their bid due to concerns about its ability to combat corruption and crime.

The statement of Romanian President Traian Basescu clears much of the confusion over controversial statements of Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi. Romania and Bulgaria should not enter the Schengen Agreeement together, Baconschi stated this week after claiming just the opposite a day earlier.

"We would like to see the two countries entering at the same date but ... we are still insisting on the principle that you need to evaluate each candidate state on its individual merits," Baconschi told EUobserver in an interview in Brussels on Tuesday (1 February).

Speaking in Brussels on Friday, Bulgarian PM Borisov said Bulgaria was already totally fit to join Schengen.

"Bulgaria is totally fit to join Schengen, we are doing our best and I am confident that our efforts will be highly assessed at the end," Boyko Borisov told journalists during the regular sitting of the European Council in Brussels.

Bulgaria's government has repeatedly said it is working hard to cover the Schengen Agreement criteria and join the zone March 2011. The Balkan country has also started working with the Schengen Information System (SIS).

The country however will most probably fail to join the Schengen area in March 2011, a target date, which has been set as early as in 2007, during the term of the previous Socialist-led government. The next deadline to be set for Bulgaria is expected to be November this year.

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