Gerhard Karner, the Austrian minister of interior, arrived in Bucharest for the first meeting with his Romanian counterpart, Lucian Bode, after Austria rejected Romania's bid for accession to the Schengen area in December.

"I confirm that this visit thaws the relations between Romania and Austria," said Lucian Bode in a press statement alongside Gerhard Karner.

"In the last months, we have had clear, difficult discussions, but we have had them," stated the Austrian minister of interior cited by G4Media.

During the press conference held at the Ministry of Interior headquarters, Gerhard Karner said that "we are far from having a functional border system," seeing as European member states within the Schengen area still do border checks between each other.

The Austrian minister added that he cannot offer an exact date for Romania's accession to the Schengen Area.

"The figures show that we had over 110,000 applicants last year, the highest number reported per capita, even though we don't have external borders. It shows that the system is not working,” Karner said, without explicitly mentioning that Romania was the source of the migrants – something that has been debunked by the EU’s border agency, Frontex.

radu@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Inquam Photos | George Călin)