Romania and Bulgaria will probably soon be accepted into the Schengen area, now that the elections for the European Parliament have ended, former EU Commissioner for Enlargement Gunter Verheugen told Romania-Insider.com. “It was a matter of politics, not accepting the two countries, and it was related to the elections. But they will sooner rather than later be accepted into the Schengen area,” Verheugen added.

The former commissioner, who has played an important role in Romania's negotiations to enter the EU and who has kept ties with the country, says it was not hastened to accept Romania and Bulgaria into the European Union in 2007. “It was the best possible decision back then,” Verheugen said in an interview for Romania-Insider.com. It was very clear what was expected of the two countries back then, in the context of the Kosovo conflict, which was to ensure stability in the region, which they have fully delivered.

“Yes, there are problems both countries have, mainly because of their political culture and democratic maturity, but the impression that this happens only in Romania and Bulgaria is wrong,” the former commissioner explained. “It's because there are monitoring reports on the two countries that their problems become more evident,” he further added. Should other countries be monitored, their problems would surface too.

“If you asked me which are the most corrupt countries in the EU, Romania and Bulgaria are not among them,” Verheugen said.

“We knew the problems both countries had back in 2007, and the question then was whether to improve their democratic systems with help from the outside, or let them improve from within, and the answer was the former,” he added.

But seeing Romania and Bulgaria as the bad kids on the block is an attitude “I personally dislike, it is totally unfair to the two countries,” Verheugen also told Romania-Insider.com. “I would hope EU leaders have the courage to say Romanians are not thieves, are not lazy, or people trying to exploit systems abroad, and that they are people of high culture, working people. We should support them,” he added.

The European reactions to internal migrations however, which also had an effect on Romanians and Bulgarians, but which also affected Poles, were highly exaggerated, Verheugen believes. Many people are not aware that the EU actually already has systems in place which allow countries to fight the so – called benefit shopping from other EU citizens. There could be several hundred cases when this happened, but the authorities do have the tools to deal with that, he added at a conference on development in Eastern Poland.

These feelings against the free movement of citizens within the EU were mostly fueled by mismanagement and miscommunication, all of which can be easily solved, and which will be solved in the near future, the former commissioner believes.

Verheugen actually thinks this is a short – term problem, and that the long term issue is the lack of skilled labor in Europe. “People believe there is high mobility, but in fact we do not have enough mobility in Europe, people simply do not move where the jobs are,” he concluded.

Gunter Verheugen is a German politician who served as European Commissioner for Enlargement from 1999 to 2004 and then as European Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry from 2004 to 2010. Between 1999 and 2004, he was frequently in Romania to negotiate the country's EU entry.

Romania and Bulgaria have been trying to enter the Schengen area for years, but they have been constantly denied access, despite fulfilling technical conditions, by one or the other member of free movement zone.

By Corina Chirileasa, corina@romania-insider.com, special correspondence from Poland.