Romania's frontiers "are not a vulnerability"

Secretary of State in the Ministry of Interior Marian Tutilescu said on România Actualităţi that the external Romanian borders are not a vulnerability in terms of illegal migration.

An evaluation mission for the preparations of accession to the Schengen area to inspect the airspace border's infrastructure development.

"The background evaluation took place last year in November and at that time the procedures which the frontier police performs at the airspace border crossings were noticed and these were considered positive - the final evaluation was also positive," said on România Actualităţi, the Secretary of State in the Ministry of Interior, Marian Tutilescu.

He also stated that the works on the Traian Vuia airport's infrastructure in Timisoara and on the non-Schengen terminal from Otopeni have been in an early phase at that moment and the european experts were unable to check whether they were in compliance with the technical requirements established by the previous evaluation.

"Unfortunately, at that time the infrastructure of the two evaluated airports, meaning the infrastructure of the Traian Vuia airport and the non-Schengen terminal from Otopeni were in an early phase".

"The works had just been started and the experts considered that they had to check upon the way the technical requirements were implemented in the final phase of the infrastructure", Marian Tutilescun added.

Romania's external frontier, supervised

The Secretary of State also said that the external Romanian frontier is under the supervision of an independent European institution, Frontex, which has established that this is not a vulnerability.

"Following the risk assessments that are being done by Frontex, the area, the external Romanian frontier is not a vulnerability, in terms of the illegal migration, which is the main risk factor regarding the frontier security".

"These connections that are trying to be made in the last period are just a way to justify a particular political opinion of certain Member States", Marian Tutilescu stated.

The Secretary of State also stated that there is another evaluation mission in December, which is final.

"It concerns the very important fields of police cooperation,respectively, the Schengen information system and the SIRENE National Office".

"The Schengen information system contains data on goods and persons of police interest, according to the Schengen acquis. The privacy of the personal data is a prerequisite for everything that Schengen data system represents", the Secretary of State also stated.
Following the accession to the Schengen area, Romania will have to manage an EU external frontier of 2070 km.

Translated by: Iulia Florescu and Andreea Velicu
MA Studenst, MTTLC, Bucharest University