Romanian minister accuses Austrian counterpart of turning Schengen vote into ‘political game’

Romania’s interior minister Lucian Bode recently sent an open letter to his Austrian counterpart, Gerhard Karner, expressing his deep indignation regarding the Austrian veto against Romania’s accession to the Schengen area.

Bode accuses Karner of transforming the vote in the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council into a political game that is “unworthy of a country with such a rich political tradition, one that has been a consolidated democracy for so long” in the letter, cited by News.ro.

All other EU interior ministers, Bode writes, “carried out thorough but fair analyses” of Romania’s candidacy to Schengen, showing that they understood that “we have a duty to fulfill our mission towards the structures we represent, towards the states in whose service we are and towards the European Union, to which we all belong and in whose values we believe.”

“You assured me on November 23 in Vienna, in the presence of our colleagues, that you are ‘a friend of Romania,’ and that your position is ‘not against Romania, but against a dysfunctional system that should not be extended to any state,” the Romanian interior minister adds. He goes on to argue that Austria’s veto is “an unfair, unjust decision, without any real justification, [and one] which causes major damage at the EU level and sets a dangerous precedent in the current geopolitical context.”

Bode decries the trampling of European values and principles and condemns the disregard shown to Romanian citizens. Austria’s arguments, he says, “simply have nothing to do with reality.”

Karner treated Romanians in “an unfair, discriminatory and illogical manner,” Bode also says in the letter, adding that the Austrian minister’s “way of conduct and actions are not appropriate for any politician in the EU.”

“You know as well as I do that the migration problem you mentioned cannot be attributed to Romania. […] Nothing great and lasting can be built on lies and injustice," Bode adds, before restating Romania’s commitment to being a part of the Schengen area.

Austria blocked Romania’s accession to the Schengen area in a December 8 vote in the JHA Council. Austrian PM Nehammer argued that Europe should first settle the problem of illegal migration before enlarging the Schengen area – despite the fact that migrants do not pass through Romania, as shown by Frontex data cited by