The MEP who urged the Netherlands not to block Romania’s entry into Schengen: They have prejudices against the East (translation in comments)
The MEP who urged the Netherlands not to block Romania’s entry into Schengen: They have prejudices against the East (translation in comments)
10 comments
Translation:
The governments of the European Union will vote on Romania’s and Bulgaria’s accession to the Schengen area in December. Although the two countries have long met the criteria for Schengen, the Netherlands refuses to join.
Dutch MEP Sophia In ‘t Veld, a member of the ruling party in the Netherlands, told the European Parliament on Wednesday that she was ashamed that the government in The Hague was opposed to Romania and Bulgaria joining the Schengen area.
She called on Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to support the expansion of the European freedom of movement area with the two candidate countries. Spotmedia.ro writes that she is ashamed that her country could block the expansion of Schengen.
Sophia In ‘t Veld, Dutch MEP: “You have to understand that in the Netherlands we have a lot of extremist parties, some are Eurosceptic if not anti-EU, so the atmosphere is not really favourable. That is why I made this appeal to Mr Rutte from the European Parliament: leadership is not about telling people what they want to hear, it is about making tough and unpopular decisions in difficult situations, being consistent, defending them and the people to convince that this is right”.
Asked if there are any signs that the Netherlands will oppose Romania’s entry into the Schengen area, Sophia In ‘t Veld said: “Let me put it this way: I think the atmosphere in the Dutch parliament is rather negative, so the question is whether Prime Minister Mark Rutte will take action against the national parliament. Of course, decisions always have to be made in the European context, and he can explain to the Dutch Parliament that this is not a popular decision, but that it had to be taken. Only he didn’t do that anymore in connection with the Schengen expansion.”
**“It has to do with prejudices against the East”**
Sophia In ‘t Veld, Dutch MEP: “To a large extent, not exclusively, but to a large extent, it has to do with prejudice against Eastern and Central Europeans, which of course is easily fueled, and we see in many states of the European Union that prejudice and intolerance is there of Rise, i.e. political calculation.
Bulgaria and Romania have long since fulfilled the Schengen criteria. In any other situation, if there are criteria that must be met, you must close the deal as soon as it is. In this case, the Netherlands is one of the few countries that apparently does not want this. Will he change his mind? I don’t know, but I can imagine that after the debate in the European Parliament and the Czech EU Presidency put this issue back on the agenda, the pressure has increased, and because we are in a crisis situation, there is one ongoing war, and the unity of the European Union is very important. Maybe that changes everything Mr. Rutte, I really hope so, I think he should do it, that it’s the right thing to do.
**“We have many extremist parties in the Netherlands”**
The MP from the Netherlands also explained that there are many extremist parties in her country, some of them even “anti EU“.
“You have to understand that in the Netherlands we have a lot of extremist parties, some are Eurosceptic if not anti-EU, so the atmosphere is not really favourable. That is why I made this appeal to Mr Rutte from the European Parliament: leadership is not about telling people what they want to hear, it is about making tough and unpopular decisions in difficult situations and being consistent, they to defend and convince people that this is right”said the MEP, according to spotmedia.ro.
**The link between Schengen and respect for the rule of law**
Sophia In ‘t Veld also stated that Romania meets the technical criteria to join Schengen and that eliminating corruption is not one of them.
“Only if that connection was made explicitly in the rules, otherwise that connection should not be made. If you expect someone to meet certain criteria, then you need to be clear about what those criteria are. If one of the criteria was the complete elimination of corruption, then yes, Bulgaria and Romania would not join Schengen. Are there concerns about the rule of law, corruption and fundamental rights in Bulgaria and Romania? God yes! But that’s different. There are technical criteria that have been met for Schengen entry,” She said.
Funny how the Netherlands complain about our governance while Rutte has been for longer in power than Boyko Borisov
More like it’s because they cannot handle the influx of Romanians how England did. And if you keep trying to load NL with more people. You will end up with Brexit part 2.
There is already no housing in NL. Am emergency hotel for a month will cost you 1900 a month for a hostel right now. And there are waiting lists to find rooms going back months
I think NL should protect itself, not Romanians or other Europeans citizens before even their own.
Very misleading and headline and clueless allegations.
Maybe better ask yourself why european criminal statistics are dominated by romanian perpetrators and what the romanian government is doing to cope with that problem (they just released 10k criminals from prison).
Maybe that’s how to find some reasons why some countries are very skeptical
Silly original text:
> expansion of the European freedom of movement area
Schengen Treaty doesn’t regulate freedom of movement. Just border checks.
Romanian media texter doing themselves.
(I’m not good at english)
There is no point on to veto Romania just for corruption other countries like hungary were way more corrupt and they were let in,not to mention that there are way more corrupt countries in schengen at the moment and the theory that after schengen all romanians will flood Netherlands it’s false we already have freedom of movement if i and the other romanians wanted to move there we would’ve been already, netherlands has the lowest romanian population your concern should be immigrants from africa and asia.
Tell us something we don’t know.
Who would’ve thunk that the Dutch are racist along with French and Germans towards the easterners?
I am shocked and bamboozled !
If the EC advises to allow Romania and Bulgeria to enter into Schengen; then I think we The Netherlands should not veto this preposal. However after 4 Mark Rutte (VVD) kabinets I also know that often they ignore the advice of others who are, by any meaningfull metric, much more qualified. The MEP in the article is currently a member of the leading coalition in the Netherlands so lets hope their party can atleast put some pressure on the VVD. But I wouldn’t get my hopes up
The Netherlands as a whole doesn’t have prejudices against Eastern Europe. Just because she says so doesn’t mean it’s true.
Romania and Bulgaria should definitely be able to join Schengen and I despise Rutte more and more because of things like this but it’s not because of prejudice.