Romanian consulates from Chisinau and Istanbul will be inspected, starting Wednesday, regarding the Schengen space adhesion. There were 145.696 euros (-VAT) spent for preparing Romanian consulates for the moment of joining. Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a 39.7 million euros budget to set up its consulates according to the Schengen standards. The money are European funds, to which national funds add as well, according to the European norms.
Romania is aiming to join the Schengen space in 2011. This entails the elimination of border controls between the EU member states. Since Romania is becoming EU’s Eastern border, the country needs to strengthen the checks at EU’s border with its neighbourhood. It also needs to run more checks before awarding visas to non-EU citizens.
Thus, Romania is going through a stage of evaluations, according to a calendar:
March, 2009 – evaluating the cooperation of the Police forcesApril, 2009 – evaluating data protectionJune, 2009 – visasSeptember, 2009 – maritime bordersNovember, 2009 – aerial bordersDecember 2009 or March 2010 – terrestrial borders.
EU experts will take a close look not only to the way the Romanian authorities award Schengen visas, but also to the figures. The logistic endowment of buildings where the Consulates function is also under scrutiny.
For 2009 – 2010, Romanian Ministry for Foreign Affairs (MAE) receives 39.7 million euros from the European Union for modernising the consulates, and 15.3 million euros for the informational system.
The consulates in Istanbul and Chisinau were chosen from a list of five. The other three were the consulates in Moscow, Belgrade and Kiev. The two main criteria of choice addressed the significant number of visas awarded and the risk they are subject to due to immigration. The choice has also been made in agreement with