Cătălin Predoiu, Minister of Internal Affairs:
Hello everyone!
I am pleased to open this press conference, together with the Federal Minister of the Interior, Mrs. Nancy Faeser, Mr. Thomas Hitzlsperger, ambassador of German football, who accompanied Mrs. minister on this important visit, along with colleagues from the German delegation and, last but not least, with Mr. Ionuț Lupescu, the well-known Romanian sports’ personality and honorary president of Club Dinamo Bucharest.
I am honored by this visit, which Mrs. minister made following our invitation some time ago. It is an important visit for us. The German Ministry of the Interior is an important partner of the Romanian Ministry of the Interior. We have benefited from the constant support of this ministry in our important files, including the Schengen file, and we meet in a context of tradition, of collaboration between our countries, of which a very strong link is the German minority in Romania, but also the Romanian community that lives and works in Germany.
We discussed important files for us, but also for the European construction. We approached these files from a double perspective, bilateral and European. For example, as we pointed out in our discussions, Schengen is not an important file only for Romania, it is an important file for Europe and its solution in 2024 will demonstrate European cohesion and the fact that this project works, in a context where an increasingly important anti-European current is being heard in many states in Europe.
Romania meets technical criteria for 14 years. We are glad that last year an important step was taken, finding a common way to solve it and our Austrian colleagues, strongly supported by the European countries and the European Commission, strongly supported by Germany, and we managed to generate the Council decision of December 2023. But this step it must be continued with the next one, regarding the land borders.
The history of Schengen has known other examples of states that have entered on stages with the borders in the Schengen area. The history of Schengen does not know any example where a state was left with only part of its borders in Schengen and others outside Schengen. And we believe that history will be confirmed this year, in 2024, and Romania will complete this file with the support of the member states, the Commission and in good cooperation with Austria.
We cooperate very well on migration, combating illegal migration. Romania performs at the top in Europe in combating illegal migration. It is demonstrated not only by our evidences, but also by the FRONTEX ones, the European Commission’s evidences published periodically in the Schengen Eurobarometer, but also by the bilateral figures of our neighbours. I confirmed this, including with Minister Karner, two to three weeks ago.
As we expected for Germany and other Member States, the good dialogue we have with our Austrian colleagues contributed to last year’s solution and will be a basis for the future land border solution as well.
This is the European way of working and we practiced it successfully last year. And, like in football, we don’t change the tactics that brought us a result.
We discussed increasing police cooperation. We had important support from our German colleagues in solving important cases for us last year, including the case of a fugitive who was hiding in Germany and who was quickly identified by our Romanian and German, Hungarian and Austrian colleagues, but, in a way especially, the cooperation with the German colleagues brought a result and, therefore, the person in question is now before the Romanian law.
Furthermore, our colleagues, Romanian policemen, helped their German colleagues in solving cases of cross-border crime. And we discussed raising that cooperation, sharing more information together on organized crime, increasing the number of police officers working in joint teams, and increasing top-level dialogue between our police forces, including representatives of the BKA.
We also discussed cooperation in the field of civil protection, where both countries have very powerful apparatuses. Recently, a cooperation agreement was signed to help us multiply the result of our efforts, combining logistics facilities and attracting more support from the European Commission.
Finally, I thanked Mrs. minister for the support given to the Republic of Moldova, not only recently, but for a long time. For us, the evolution on the European path of the Republic of Moldova, including the strengthening of public safety and public order, of the rule of law, are important, they are essential. The battle for democracy and Europeanism is permanent.
And I also thanked Mrs. Minister for the organization of polling stations on the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany, so that Moldovan citizens could cast their vote there.
Generally, we have laid the foundations for an intensification of our cooperation. We understood each other on all subjects, we discussed concrete solutions and I am extremely happy that we can contribute together to the development of our partnership with Germany.
Thank you very much!
