President Klaus Iohannis supports the idea of combining some elections to reduce the number of polls to be held this year

President Klaus Iohannis said today that he supports the idea of merging some elections in order to reduce the number of polls to be held this year. President Klaus Iohannis considers it unacceptable to appoint only people from Western Europe to the top jobs in the EU bloc, as was the case in previous European Parliament elections.

He made the comments at a joint press conference in Strasbourg with the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, who also called for a balanced distribution of these posts.

In the upcoming European Parliament elections, the challenge is not only populism, but also the silent majority who should be convinced that voting counts, said European Parliament President Roberta Metsola. She said it was important for the legitimacy of the European Union that everyone felt represented in the main functions of the EU bloc. President Klaus Iohannis also believes that high-level positions in the EU should be filled by people from countries that joined later.

"In my opinion, it would be inadmissible that a position should not be occupied by a person from the new member states, i.e. from the East. I think that in 2019 it was wrong, all the relevant positions were filled by very competent people, so that's not the discussion, from the old Europe and that's one of the reasons why many Eastern Europeans consider themselves a bit left out", President Klaus Iohannis said.

On the other hand, the head of state also referred to Romania's accession to the Schengen area and said that the lifting of air and sea border controls in March should naturally be followed as soon as possible by the abolition of land border controls.

Translated by: Radu Matei