Romania hopes to join EU Schengen bloc by 2012, minister says
Deutsche Presse
Agentur
Published: Wednesday
September 6, 2006
Berlin- Romania, which expects to join the European
Union next year, hopes to be admitted to the EU Schengen group and abolish
intra-bloc border controls by 2012, the country's interior minister said
Wednesday. "We will have to work very hard to meet this deadline," said Interior
and Administration Minister Vasile Blaga at a press conference after talks with
German officials in Berlin.
Romania, along with Bulgaria, is expected to
win a green light from the European Commission later this month to join the
25-member EU on January 1, 2007.
The Schengen Agreement removes border
posts and checks between its member states.
So far, 26 countries -
including all EU members except Ireland and Britain, but including non-EU
members Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland - have signed the agreement and 15 have
implemented it.
Countries being admitted to the Schengen bloc have to
demonstrate that their non-Schengen frontiers are secure and Blaga said his
country was making huge investments to bring its border controls up to
standard.
About 1.2 billion euros (1.5 billion dollars) were due to be
spent on high-tech border surveillance systems in the coming years, he said.
Over 500 million euros is being paid by Bucharest with the rest of the money
coming from the EU.
"We will have the second longest EU external border
after Finland's border with Russia," said Blaga, adding that policing the more
than 2,000 kilometre-long EU external frontier to Serbia, Ukraine, Moldova and
the Black Sea presented challenges which few other EU states had to
master.
Romania currently has 18,400 border guards, he said.
Blaga
said Romania would need at least five years to get into shape for admission to
Schengen.
"We are talking about the year 2012," he said.
© 2006
DPA - Deutsche Presse-Agenteur
An aristocratic title is not enough to ensure a noble behaviour. A person's greatness comes from acknowledging the mistakes and agreeing to correct them.
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." (Jimi Hendrix)
*** sustineti [romania_eu_list] prin 2% din impozitul pe 2005 - detalii la http://www.doilasuta.ro ***
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