March 19 (SeeNews) - The European Commission (EC) is supporting the elimination of the Co-operation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) for Romania at the end of this year, the country's prime minister Florin Citu said.
"Today I had a meeting with Ms Vera Jourova, Vice-President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency. We discussed in detail about the mechanism regarding the rule of law and about the report for Romania," Citu wrote in a social media post on Thursday.
Citu also said that he is sharing Jourova's wish for Romania to fulfil in the first half of the year the commitments regarding the rule of law which Romania has as a member state of the European Union.
The main goals, Citu said, are to eliminate the unfavourable effects of changes to justice laws brought during 2017-2019 and create legislation that will ensure the long-term independence of the judiciary from political pressure.
Lat month, Citu said that Romania's accession to the EU's borderless Schengen area depends on a positive CVM report from the European Commission due in the summer.
"I hope that this year, Romania will join Schengen. Romania has been ready to enter the Schengen area since 2011," Citu said, adding that initially only airports would probably become part of the Schengen zone. "However, if we we stick to what we promised and observe the CVM recommendations, we should be able to achieve full accession," the prime minister noted at the time.
In its latest CVM report for Romania released in October 2019, the European Commission said that the country still had to make progress on the recommendations made in the previous two reports. The CVM was established at the moment of Romania and Bulgaria's accession to the EU in 2007 as a transitional measure to facilitate their continued efforts to reform the two countries' judiciary and step up the fight against corruption.
The European Parliament gave the green light to Bulgaria and Romania to join the Schengen area in June 2011 and has reiterated its position several times since.
Currently, Bulgaria and Romania apply the Schengen acquis partially and checks are carried out at their borders. The final decision on whether the two countries can become full members of the Schengen area has to be made through a unanimous vote in the European Council by EU ministers. The Schengen area comprises 26 European states that have officially abolished passport and all other types of border control at their mutual borders.
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