Former minister: in Schengen, in 11 years, Romania could have added 25 billion euros to GDP (translation in the comments)
Former minister: in Schengen, in 11 years, Romania could have added 25 billion euros to GDP (translation in the comments)
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Translation:
200 million euros per month. That’s how much Romania’s GDP could have increased if in 2011, we got the green light for Schengen. The data emerge from an analysis made by one of the four largest audit firms in the world, cited by Răzvan Nicolescu, former Minister of Energy.
Schengen at the right time would have brought 25 billion euros to Romania’s GDP.
Since 2011, when our country had already met the Schengen accession criteria, Romania’s GDP could have increased by 25 billion euros.
From the loading of the goods in a Romanian truck to their delivery in a country in the Schengen Area, the company doing the transport diminishes the profit it could have made normally. And the losses are added to the final cost of the products.
“The transporters from the National Council of SMEs explained to us that there is a cost per transport of at least 200 euros more, due to Romania’s non-entry or non-membership of the Schengen area”, says Florin Jianu, president of the National Council of Small and Medium Private Enterprises from Romania.
“40% of the cost of export-import goods is from logistics, from delays at the border, which can be applied or extrapolated to a Schengen border”, according to Adina Vălean, European Commissioner.
In other words, in the case of a product that costs ten RON, four RON represents, in addition to the actual transport cost, the time the truck driver spends in customs with border crossing procedures. In the Ruse-Giurgiu customs, waiting hours even turn into days during busy periods.
“(n. ed. I’m sitting) from tonight, since 3 o’clock. In Schengen, you pay automatically,” says a driver at customs.
Each month of delay in the accession process – it costs 200 million euros.
Freight carriers could have saved time and money as early as 2011, when Romania had already met the Schengen accession criteria. The losses were passed on throughout the economy and reached the order of billions of euros.
“I saw a very serious analysis, a very serious modeling done by a Big 4 consulting firm. Each month of delay in our accession to Schengen means at least 200 million euros less in Romania’s gross domestic product. The same analysis showed that in the 11 years we lost, the amount of losses to Romania’s GDP was, in the updated value of money, almost 25 billion euros”, according to Răzvan Nicolescu, president of the Association for Clean Energy and Combating Climate Change.
**At the value of this year’s Gross Domestic Product, the 25 billion euros represent almost 9% of the economy.**
We should take Austria to the European Court of Justice and make them pay for the amount of money we lost because they irrationally vetoed our Schengen application.
And those 25 billion euros do not include investors that don’t come to Romania because it’s not part of the schengen area.
Now add lost investments and border upkeep between Schengen countries.
The best thing would be to boycott their companies
The Austrian state has a 31.5% stake in OMV and if their revenue would take a dip, as Romania is a major market for them, they would feel some discomfort.
Now if we do the same with Raiffeisen and Erste, again Romania is one of the biggest markets in Eastern Europe, we could add some discomfort.
Then Strabag and Porr.