Bogdan Aurescu, Romania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, shared his two cents on the Netherlands’ stance on Romania’s Schengen entry exclusively during Digi24’s weekend broadcast. He believes that Amsterdam has not yet decided regarding Romania and Bulgaria’s accession to the area, nodding that “there is still room for political, diplomatic, technical approaches.”

“I am convinced that the Dutch side evaluates all options and variants, including such a situation, just as we do our evaluations, calculations, and hypotheses. I think the result is important, not the moment. It does not mean that it's impossible for a decision will be made in December,” he said.

For the past few years, Romania’s road to Schengen has been nothing but stalled communications. The Netherlands has infamously vetoed Romania and Bulgaria back in 2011, saying that the two countries weren’t capable of protecting the 25-member-strong area border and hadn’t done enough to combat organized corruption.

A decade has passed since then, and Romania hopes to enter the agreement by the end of this year alongside Bulgaria and Croatia.

“I saw the 2011 moment and could see the very high expectation that was created at that time for a certain entry term that did not happen. That's not productive. It is not good to give deadlines, to overbid, to raise the tone when things are not resolved,” Aurescu recalled.

rafly@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Bogdan Aurescu on Facebook)