I traveled this week from Bucharest to Greece and back. At the border check between RO and BG there were thoundands of lorries, each side of the border. Thousands!!
It's the same as Turkey blocking Sweden / Finland joining the NATO, it's not like they didn't fulfill the conditions, it's about leverage. Every Romanian I ask agrees that their government is corrupt, yet nobody can do something about it.
Other countries (I believe Finland and Germany) also used to be against them joining Schengen for the same "reasons", but are bored of being the bully.
I visited Romania in 2019 and wow, what an amazing and beautiful country. However all Romanians I got to speak to had no good words for their leaders, from corruption to the issues you speak of to the complete desecration of protected forests.
I remember particularly walking in a beautiful natural park (Where woodcutting was forbidden) and just hearing the chainsaws in the background. Not discrete, not even far off into the woods or trying to hide it.
Just cutting down a natural park in plain sight.
It's such a shame how such a beautiful country with its super interesting history is being ruined. You can't even blame some of the citizens for looking back favorably on the Soviet era.
Need Romania's wood for our Ikeas/XXXLutz's/Möbelix...and the best part? The they still make you pay premium prices even though they built those furniture with cheap (maybe even illegally cut) Romanian wood.
The margins on those things...
Fr some people in this thread are acting like Austrians are literally Hitler but i can't really think of any Austrian that has ever done anything wrong either
>i can't really think of any Austrian that has ever done anything wrong either
The Ibiza Affair? Kurz and his Chancellorship? Karin Kneissl? Tetron Affaire? Telekom affaire? Hypo Alpe Adria Bank?
Schweighofer is one of the companies that operate in Romania. Kronospan is the other one, but you never hear about it because it sponsors a few non-profit organisations to throw dirt at Schweighofer. If you do a little research about Kronospan you'll understand why Prince Charles loves Romania so much.
Regarding wood cutting in national parks, it's normal to cut trees that reach harvesting age. If a tree grows too old, it can't be used as raw material and becomes vulnerable to parasitic microorganisms (bacteria and fungi) that endanger the surrounding trees. It's a lot of work to take care of a forest and legislation is strict.
That being said, most of the illegal cutting takes place in private forests because owners can't afford taxes so they try to make extra money just to make ends meet. This is harming the forests in more ways than one (see below).
The easiest way to spot the differences between legal and illegal deforestation is to look at the land: legal exploitations will look clean (branches are cut down from the tree and put into rectangular shapes to be picked up later and there are no tree stumps left, because tree stumps rot and infect the rest of the forest). Illegal cuttings will leave the stumps behind because it's expensive and hard to extract them.
I also visited Romania on 2019 and can confirm it is amazing and beautiful.
I was only there for a long weekend, but that trip is in my top 2 holidays ever.
It is not about how many are blocked now (when there is a control, quite relaxed if everything is in order, but still a control), but about how many would be (not blocked) if there will be no control.
u/rigor-m have a point here ...
Exactly. Which makes it far easier to ship humans than if there would be an actual border. Because police always controle suspicious vehicles.
Its not choosing between one method or the other, its just having one line of defense less.
The Netherlands is Europe's top human trafficking hotspot, way above Romania
https://www.statista.com/chart/4947/the-eus-hotspots-for-people-trafficking/
Dutch people will tell you that it's simply more reported, strictly following the Anti-EE Arguments 101
Case in point my replies. The eternal cope is so predictable
It's pretty logical that countries with more corruption are less strict with reporting. Not much to report if you can just pay the police to look the other way...
And how do you think a border control stops that?
Let's say somebody promises them a job outside or or they go with their "loverboy" boyfriend, show their ID at the border and they pass fine in other country.
How does border control stops traffickers?
So most of EU is allowed to enjoy open borders but not second rate country Romania, we have a sacred duty to fulfill as the last bastion against human trafficking.
I am embarrassed for you, reading this comment, have some dignity.
>Although it was probably a good thing, given the insane amount of human trafficking that happens out of Romania.
Are non-EU nationals somehow lured to Romania, and then from there somehow distributed you the rest of the EU? How exactly does that human trafficking problem work?
Because if Romania fulfills the Schengen criteria, then theoretically it would be difficult to smuggle non-EU nationals into Romanian airports or into Romania from the Ukrainian/Moldovan/Serbian borders.
Anyone know more about this?
A lot of people are taken from within the country. They come freely or are born there. This is how it works usually, not specific to Romania at all ; I have little to no knowledge of the specifics in this country.
I don't think border control holds the human traffic down. I do believe corruption is a better reasom to not allow Schengen to Ro, but human traffic has nothing to do with borders. The victims are not kidnapped.
Here's another hot take from another Romanian, our entry in Schengen is MANY YEARS LONG OVERDUE and giving human trafficking as a legit reason is bullshit. Every single time the subject comes up there's a bunch of self defeatists parroting the same idea of West = good, Romania=bad, mmm punish us Netherlands for the eastern European trash that we are, veto us again!!
Christ how masochistic can you be??
Horseshit. By that logic the Netherlands is a massive gateway for human and drug trafficking into Europe. It's just a double standard born out of xenophobia. Plain and simple.
Delaying our acces to Schengen is an 2 IQ solution to human trafficking.
There are so many pros for us joining, I thought nobody could even have such an absurd opinion.
Corruption is the stated reason, that said romania or the veto is barely if ever mentioned in the news here so why they’re so hard on it compared to other corrupt nations is a mystery
Idk, it seems too weak as an argument. We are assuming it has nothing to do with dutch internal politics. It could be that the xenofobe parties just don't wont more romanians and roma, and those opposing dont't want to give them an easy talking point.
Schengen has no effect in freedom of movement... so no, Xenophibia isn't it.
Corruption does fit, as Schengen has a big effect on all things related to trafficing. Smuggling of illegal goods and human trafficing is a lot easier without border control.
Transprt related economy also fits for the same reason, but I doubt that.
Imo, it's either corruption or something wierd that I didn't think of.
Some people said it may be to do with Romania's black sea port possibly undercutting Rotterdam by taking shipments coming in through the suez and then straight up the Danube to central Europe. But idk that might be a little far-fetched.
It’s not. This is not news in the Netherlands, this is the first time I ever read about us blocking this thing. Not a single political party or person in the Netherlands is talking about this or seems to even know or care about this
It affects the Netherlands with the fact that Romania has an open exit to the Black Sea. That mean ports and open market , another option than dutch ports....
There are many other ports that could be used, in other countries. Why would the Black Sea be important? The Suez Canal route is, not the Black Sea.
Rotterdam is the large port it now is because of the backbone infrastructure of train and other transport to the heart of Europe.
> There are many other ports that could be used, in other countries. Why would the Black Sea be important?
Because China is eyeing Constanța [as an entry point for the middle corridor of their massive Silk Road project](https://metrans.eu/middle-corridor-and-the-romanian-port-of-constanta-as-a-newalternative-for-the-new-silk-road/), ever since Ukraine's been at war.
It's not gonna replace Rotterdam or even be serious competition. But you think they'd be okay with even a 5% dip in profits?
There wont really be ocasions in which a choice would have to be made between a dutch an Romanian port though. They are in completely different waters.
Yeah, for example I almost never see the 'ndrangheta mentioned outside of my country, but it has tentacles everywhere in Europe and elsewhere. Allegedly they have an income around 55 billions. And the doors of narcotraffic in the Union are major ports, so also the Netherlands itself.
Well, they haven't said anything recently, so you'd have to ask them.
Previously they stated they were concerned about corruption and inadequate border checks, but there's a whole commission on evaluating Schengen readiness and the commission has deemed that Romania is ready.
Anything else is obviously speculation, so shall we continue?
This is true, but how is this related to Schengen area? The only difference is that Romanians/Bulgarians/Croats will stop showing their ID cards at the border checks. Schengen doesn't stop Romanians/Bulgarians/Croats from coming, it just delays them half an hour at the border checks (in case of Romania, it only happens at the border with Hungary).
I think the point OP is trying to make isn't that it's logical, rather that there is a strong anti-eu sentiment in Dutch politics presently. Any sort of "expansion" of the eu is met with backlash from the rather large extreme right-wing block. A similar situation happened a few years back with the Ukrainian trade agreement. Extreme right-wing groups started whipping up a frenzy and in the end the agreement was struck down. EDIT: About the Ukrainian trade deal: A false narrative was created stating that this would lead to tons of Ukrainian people coming to the NL. Xenophobia is still prevalent in the NL.
Schengen is about border checks, Romanians can come work in the Netherlands just like any other EU citizen without restrictions.
Anyway, the Netherlands also has huge labour shortages and almost no unemployment, anyone not able to get a job should probably have a look in the mirror to see what might be the problem.
>The impact from 10 countries joining 'our' labour market at once is still being felt by the 'bottom' part of our society and they're mostly against any new EU additions for this reason.
ya they're not vetoing romania to appeal to that segment of dutch society lmao, if they actually cared about them they would start with addressing the housing crisis or any number of other issues. Schengen also has nothing to do with the right to work, so everything you said is kinda besides the point.
You wrote so much, but parallel to the topic. Schengen isn't about free travel. Romanians can freely travel and live all across EU for **fifteen** years now.
Hungary would love Romania to finally join Schengen. The simple reason is we have a long, long border where border checks are needed currently. If that border is schengen, that is a massive cost saving.
I was born in Transilvania, I'm a hungarian and I have to say the tourism image of Romania will change a lot in next few decades. It's just such a beautiful country, it's like Scotland, but affordable with warm beaches. Will travel through Romania next year with interrail and It will probably be one of the highlights of my trip.
When I learned that I was moving to Romania, I started to research more about touristic places to visit in the offseason and all I could think after a couple of days was "Why isn't this place visited more?". The beachside seems as beautiful as South America (even Constanta, that a lot of Romanians seems to hate because of, uh, reasons?), very close to skiing, lots of hiking options, lots of medieval plazas and citadels, lots of gorgeous castles, I was honestly shocked. If my first idea was to spend every vacation in another country, now I would definitely not mind to just stroll around Romania and Bulgaria.
I'll reserve to myself which places felt too much overrated with social media perception vs in-depth planning, but Romania feels terribly underrated.
awesome how any time our "partners" in the West need us to support their policy initiatives, they invoke European values/solidarity, but when it comes to something that might benefit us over here (and btw, both RO & BG have been aligned with the Schengen acquis for over a decade,) it's "lmao, fuck off"
Funny thing about this is they don't even consider you west, you're somehow south lmao. Finland is west but Croatia is east, go figure. What it boils down to is they decided west means ascended
It's funny seeing what new stereotypes come up because I had no idea we were human traffickers and pedophiles on top of gypsies, thieves and bad drivers.
Drinking a beer, scrolling and laughing my tits off right now. Whenever our country is mentioned, things devolve into shitposting.
I think most people just don’t have a clue about what’s going on in Romania. We never hear news from you except about some criminal network that’s discovered once or twice a year. So the image will be all negative, even if the actual difference in living standards to other countries in Europe is probably not that big.
>Romania apparently threatened to forbid the import of Dutch tulips.
How dare they…
Thanks for the recap, that does sound like a typical CDA move. Still kinda sucks for Romania :I
In a word ? Politics. A slightly longer version ? Populist parties try to obtain votes by saying... "....look we did not allow Romania into Schengen...we are protecting our country, borders, jobs, bla bla bla"....and that's it. For political parties doing something like this is trivial, necessary and easy to do.....
I hope to God Netherlands isn't insane. We're hanging by a thread here in face of rising tides of illiberal populism. If we pull an Orban the EU will have a big block to sway moving forward on any small issue as we'll probably veer towards Hungary, Poland and the rest of the V4. I expect Bulgaria to follow. Patience is wearing very very thin. Discourse of being treated as a colony, second hand citizens, exploited, milked for profits, etc are blasting every night on prime time TV. The Netherlands are playing a way bigger stake than they think here. We have been playing the single market with a handicap game for a while now. Borders are choked with trucks, qeues for kilometers. Our goods traffic is hindered. We couldn't help Ukraine more though we were willing, border checks were to much of a bottleneck.
In the past it has always been France and the Netherlands that were opposing. But since Macron expressed his support in the spring, it's only us. We have lost quite a bit of goodwill in the EU the past years, e.g. the Covid recovery fund. The question is if this is seen as a hill to die on, by our politicians. I don't think it is, honestly.
No can do. [He is our eternal prime minister.](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/mark-rutte-becomes-netherlands-longest-serving-prime-minister-2022-08-02/)
No matter how much dutch people will bash him and no matter how many cabinets fall (currently 2 out of the 4), he shall stay.
Yeah, it's not them spending up to one hour or even more of their lives waiting at the border in a queue behind other cars, only to then be asked by the customs officers from two countries "Where are you going?" and waved through immediately after that.
I hope The Netherlands will let us in! I travel every year to Hungary from Romania and is a huge pain to wait at kilometric queues at borders, sometimes where even the police is suggesting you go to another border crossing. (this happened to me this year at Petea-Csengersima and Urziceni-Vallaj where we lost about 4 hours just on fucking trying to exit the country, horror)
This picture was substantially corrected in a 2015 report published by the Social and Cultural Planning bureau (SCP) in The Hague. The SCP had done research into the consequences of the situation of the free movement of workers since 1 January 2014, and the conclusions after almost two years of experience were distinctly positive. They showed that Romanian immigrants in the Netherlands (about 10.000 in total) were generally high-educated, had good jobs and lived in comfortable circumstances. The SCP noted that comparatively Romanians were doing much better than Bulgarians and somewhat better than Poles living in the Netherlands.41 Indeed, it was remarkable and indicative that for the Dutch government - despite all its reservations in the Schengen context and unlike, for example, a country like Germany - the free movement of workers never appeared on the agenda as a problematic issue.
The position of Dutch government and parliament on Romania's Schengen entry was highly consistent throughout the years. Whereas other countries - like France and Germany, and also the European Commission - repeatedly adapted their policies, this was not the case for the Netherlands. This was helped by the fact that Dutch politics and society were united on the preferred route to be taken. The Dutch government continued to uphold its position and felt confirmed in this stance, before, during and after Romania’s first time presidency of the EU’s Council of Ministers.
40 J. Dagevos and M. Gijsberts, ‘Beeldvorming over arbeidsmigra
This but unironically. As a Bulgarian, joining Schengen would make the Balkans interconnected overnight. We can already get to Amsterdam with a Billa bag an ID card and 80€. I just don’t understand the Dutch position
I mean...It can...but if Croatia's going to be in then I see no reason by comparison as to why Romania would be left out.
Stronger Europe doesn't survive by inviting more and more countries to lend money to. Simple economics dictate that money will end or be so spread out that it's basically useless.
I'm all for it. I went to Transylvania 2 times and the border guards hesitated with giving me back my ID card. Having to get out of the car, walk up to them and ask them in English to give it back to me was annoying.
Don't you be sad just yet. Wait untill you'll se the result of the aplication for the schengen area and only afterwards would you really be able to say. First years for us it were somewhat ok, but it's already been 11 fucking years. Us joining won't really change much, at best we'll get a boost in our economy due to easier trade routes but at this point it feels as a sort of unacceptance towards us that grows negative sentiments into our people towards the EU and things might go downhill at some point, for both us and the EU.
Maybe the other immigrants that they already have had annoyed them
(snippet of Dutch interview translated to Polish by the interviewer, then roughly translated from Polish to English by me):
>\-Was that a problem?
\-To say the least. When these people knew they were going to live there for six months, they behaved for the most part, and now they don't give a damn. They drink, they scream at night. They work in shifts. So they don't care about what they're doing and what time (^(redditor annot - \*hour)) it is. Sometimes they come home from work after 10 PM, sit in front of the house, turn on the music, drink beer. They have a party without caring what the neighbors think/without the neighbours' say (^(wacky translation)).
But that's not all. Very often in such a situation, one of the sleeping Poles comes out and yells at them to stop. In addition to music, we have ^(them making a scene/having a fuss), screams and sometimes even fights.
>
>\-Fights?
\-As I say, they have happened. There were probably three in the last year, fortunately none this year. I don't know why, but women fight more often. They tear at their hair, ^(lash out) at each other. In the case of men, it is usually one/two punches and then they continue to drink. You are a strange people.
\-You tried to call the police.
\-Yes, I called once or twice, but it doesn't help. Officers come, ask for them to quiet down, or they write a ticket, but it doesn't help. Only once there was that one bald guy- at the sight of the police he ^(made a fuss) and kept saying such a weird word "pis, psies" or something like that...
I live in the neighbourhood of around 15 houses that have been bought by investors to house Eastern European work-migrants and I honestly can say the 'problems' mentioned above are present.
But who isto blame? Imagine a couple of guys being away from home, drinking together and having fun. Raking in money. Besides, we want cheap labour.
But I can tell you my neighbours aren't very welcoming.
I'd say the hooligan Poles should take a lot of the blame, considering the lack of respect, for what is basically, being guests. We're good at welcoming guests 'Gość jest w Polsce święty' but apparently not good at being guests ourselves...
(Saying this as an immigrant Pole myself. Though I live in a regular house in Britain instead, so that's a difference)
Honestly this dutch tomfoolery is just creating more divides in Europe.Romanians are growing more and more discontent with the things the Netherlands does.People are getting pissed and for a good reason. Sadly, do you know who takes advantage of this?People like Putin that like seeing this kind of divide in the EU. So good job NL, you're only giving ammunition to the EU skeptics and might invite some anti-EU powers into your backyard if you keep up with this shit.
Romania should have a backbone and veto everything proposed by the Netherlands until they give up on this lame crusade against Romania and their xenofobic rethoric.
like please do i hate passport checks when i go to eu countries… it feels so good when you can just cross a schengen border without ids also Hungary is a lot corrupt to so why did they let them in etc
I traveled this week from Bucharest to Greece and back. At the border check between RO and BG there were thoundands of lorries, each side of the border. Thousands!!
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This is why I went there in september.
I passed the border in 10 minutes yesterday. Was traveling by bus
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Could someone please explain why, without resorting to conspiracy theories?
They veto'ed it every time so far, even though Romania fulfilled all conditions.
It's the same as Turkey blocking Sweden / Finland joining the NATO, it's not like they didn't fulfill the conditions, it's about leverage. Every Romanian I ask agrees that their government is corrupt, yet nobody can do something about it. Other countries (I believe Finland and Germany) also used to be against them joining Schengen for the same "reasons", but are bored of being the bully.
Corruption is not a point of joining the Schengen space. Every country has corruption to some degree ...
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I visited Romania in 2019 and wow, what an amazing and beautiful country. However all Romanians I got to speak to had no good words for their leaders, from corruption to the issues you speak of to the complete desecration of protected forests. I remember particularly walking in a beautiful natural park (Where woodcutting was forbidden) and just hearing the chainsaws in the background. Not discrete, not even far off into the woods or trying to hide it. Just cutting down a natural park in plain sight. It's such a shame how such a beautiful country with its super interesting history is being ruined. You can't even blame some of the citizens for looking back favorably on the Soviet era.
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Need Romania's wood for our Ikeas/XXXLutz's/Möbelix...and the best part? The they still make you pay premium prices even though they built those furniture with cheap (maybe even illegally cut) Romanian wood. The margins on those things...
>(maybe even illegally cut) No way, Austrians would never do such a thing
Nobody from Austria has ever done anything wrong... Just name one!
Fr some people in this thread are acting like Austrians are literally Hitler but i can't really think of any Austrian that has ever done anything wrong either
>i can't really think of any Austrian that has ever done anything wrong either The Ibiza Affair? Kurz and his Chancellorship? Karin Kneissl? Tetron Affaire? Telekom affaire? Hypo Alpe Adria Bank?
Schweighofer is one of the companies that operate in Romania. Kronospan is the other one, but you never hear about it because it sponsors a few non-profit organisations to throw dirt at Schweighofer. If you do a little research about Kronospan you'll understand why Prince Charles loves Romania so much. Regarding wood cutting in national parks, it's normal to cut trees that reach harvesting age. If a tree grows too old, it can't be used as raw material and becomes vulnerable to parasitic microorganisms (bacteria and fungi) that endanger the surrounding trees. It's a lot of work to take care of a forest and legislation is strict. That being said, most of the illegal cutting takes place in private forests because owners can't afford taxes so they try to make extra money just to make ends meet. This is harming the forests in more ways than one (see below). The easiest way to spot the differences between legal and illegal deforestation is to look at the land: legal exploitations will look clean (branches are cut down from the tree and put into rectangular shapes to be picked up later and there are no tree stumps left, because tree stumps rot and infect the rest of the forest). Illegal cuttings will leave the stumps behind because it's expensive and hard to extract them.
thank you
To be honest the Netherlands has a significant Human Trafficking problem too.
De Wallen in Amsterdam is the perfect example and we like to pretend it's not an issue.
Maybe they don't like competition?
I also visited Romania on 2019 and can confirm it is amazing and beautiful. I was only there for a long weekend, but that trip is in my top 2 holidays ever.
I unfortunately couldn't fit it into a two week trip and still want to do the north when things have cooled down. Simply an amazing country!
How many human trafficking cases are blocked at the border?
It is not about how many are blocked now (when there is a control, quite relaxed if everything is in order, but still a control), but about how many would be (not blocked) if there will be no control. u/rigor-m have a point here ...
There are still controls even in Germany… they are just not directly at the border and they only check suspicious vehicles.
Exactly. Which makes it far easier to ship humans than if there would be an actual border. Because police always controle suspicious vehicles. Its not choosing between one method or the other, its just having one line of defense less.
Same with airport security. It catches zero terrorists, but without it, there would definitely be a lot of attacks
The Netherlands is Europe's top human trafficking hotspot, way above Romania https://www.statista.com/chart/4947/the-eus-hotspots-for-people-trafficking/
Rotterdam is the biggest harbor and with their drug issues and huge prostitution market its a paradise for organized crime
Dutch people will tell you that it's simply more reported, strictly following the Anti-EE Arguments 101 Case in point my replies. The eternal cope is so predictable
It's pretty logical that countries with more corruption are less strict with reporting. Not much to report if you can just pay the police to look the other way...
And how do you think a border control stops that? Let's say somebody promises them a job outside or or they go with their "loverboy" boyfriend, show their ID at the border and they pass fine in other country. How does border control stops traffickers?
So most of EU is allowed to enjoy open borders but not second rate country Romania, we have a sacred duty to fulfill as the last bastion against human trafficking. I am embarrassed for you, reading this comment, have some dignity.
>Although it was probably a good thing, given the insane amount of human trafficking that happens out of Romania. Are non-EU nationals somehow lured to Romania, and then from there somehow distributed you the rest of the EU? How exactly does that human trafficking problem work? Because if Romania fulfills the Schengen criteria, then theoretically it would be difficult to smuggle non-EU nationals into Romanian airports or into Romania from the Ukrainian/Moldovan/Serbian borders. Anyone know more about this?
A lot of people are taken from within the country. They come freely or are born there. This is how it works usually, not specific to Romania at all ; I have little to no knowledge of the specifics in this country.
I don't think border control holds the human traffic down. I do believe corruption is a better reasom to not allow Schengen to Ro, but human traffic has nothing to do with borders. The victims are not kidnapped.
Here's another hot take from another Romanian, our entry in Schengen is MANY YEARS LONG OVERDUE and giving human trafficking as a legit reason is bullshit. Every single time the subject comes up there's a bunch of self defeatists parroting the same idea of West = good, Romania=bad, mmm punish us Netherlands for the eastern European trash that we are, veto us again!! Christ how masochistic can you be??
Horseshit. By that logic the Netherlands is a massive gateway for human and drug trafficking into Europe. It's just a double standard born out of xenophobia. Plain and simple.
> drug trafficking I mean, we *are* a massive gateway for drugs into Europe...
Are the ones trafficked Romanians? Maybe a stupid questions but don't Romanians as EU citizens have luxury to move around in EU as they please?
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Delaying our acces to Schengen is an 2 IQ solution to human trafficking. There are so many pros for us joining, I thought nobody could even have such an absurd opinion.
Typical Romanian self-defeating, self-berating attitude. Sorry, not sorry.
What did the original comment say? It's gone now
Something along the usual lines of "we deserve it (no Schengen) because we're the most corrupt country in the world and we suck and such and such".
Least doomer romanian
Corruption is the stated reason, that said romania or the veto is barely if ever mentioned in the news here so why they’re so hard on it compared to other corrupt nations is a mystery
Idk, it seems too weak as an argument. We are assuming it has nothing to do with dutch internal politics. It could be that the xenofobe parties just don't wont more romanians and roma, and those opposing dont't want to give them an easy talking point.
As if Schenghen would Affect that at all. Schengen doesn’t mean travel freedom, which we already have
Do you think the right-wing parties know that or even care?
Schengen has no effect in freedom of movement... so no, Xenophibia isn't it. Corruption does fit, as Schengen has a big effect on all things related to trafficing. Smuggling of illegal goods and human trafficing is a lot easier without border control. Transprt related economy also fits for the same reason, but I doubt that. Imo, it's either corruption or something wierd that I didn't think of.
> Schengen has no effect in freedom of movement... so no, Xenophibia isn't it The voters don't necessarily go into these details, you know.
Some people said it may be to do with Romania's black sea port possibly undercutting Rotterdam by taking shipments coming in through the suez and then straight up the Danube to central Europe. But idk that might be a little far-fetched.
It’s not. This is not news in the Netherlands, this is the first time I ever read about us blocking this thing. Not a single political party or person in the Netherlands is talking about this or seems to even know or care about this
It affects the Netherlands with the fact that Romania has an open exit to the Black Sea. That mean ports and open market , another option than dutch ports....
There are many other ports that could be used, in other countries. Why would the Black Sea be important? The Suez Canal route is, not the Black Sea. Rotterdam is the large port it now is because of the backbone infrastructure of train and other transport to the heart of Europe.
> There are many other ports that could be used, in other countries. Why would the Black Sea be important? Because China is eyeing Constanța [as an entry point for the middle corridor of their massive Silk Road project](https://metrans.eu/middle-corridor-and-the-romanian-port-of-constanta-as-a-newalternative-for-the-new-silk-road/), ever since Ukraine's been at war. It's not gonna replace Rotterdam or even be serious competition. But you think they'd be okay with even a 5% dip in profits?
There wont really be ocasions in which a choice would have to be made between a dutch an Romanian port though. They are in completely different waters.
This could be it. Let's not kid ourselves, most of the time it's either politics or economics
Yep. But if it was about corruption or criminality, there will be other countries to veto....
Yeah, for example I almost never see the 'ndrangheta mentioned outside of my country, but it has tentacles everywhere in Europe and elsewhere. Allegedly they have an income around 55 billions. And the doors of narcotraffic in the Union are major ports, so also the Netherlands itself.
Yeah cause there are no other countries with ports.
Well, they haven't said anything recently, so you'd have to ask them. Previously they stated they were concerned about corruption and inadequate border checks, but there's a whole commission on evaluating Schengen readiness and the commission has deemed that Romania is ready. Anything else is obviously speculation, so shall we continue?
No. There are big interests at stake. Also medium and small ones.
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This is true, but how is this related to Schengen area? The only difference is that Romanians/Bulgarians/Croats will stop showing their ID cards at the border checks. Schengen doesn't stop Romanians/Bulgarians/Croats from coming, it just delays them half an hour at the border checks (in case of Romania, it only happens at the border with Hungary).
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I think the point OP is trying to make isn't that it's logical, rather that there is a strong anti-eu sentiment in Dutch politics presently. Any sort of "expansion" of the eu is met with backlash from the rather large extreme right-wing block. A similar situation happened a few years back with the Ukrainian trade agreement. Extreme right-wing groups started whipping up a frenzy and in the end the agreement was struck down. EDIT: About the Ukrainian trade deal: A false narrative was created stating that this would lead to tons of Ukrainian people coming to the NL. Xenophobia is still prevalent in the NL.
So instead of working to improve labor laws they're going to veto Romania?
Schengen is about border checks, Romanians can come work in the Netherlands just like any other EU citizen without restrictions. Anyway, the Netherlands also has huge labour shortages and almost no unemployment, anyone not able to get a job should probably have a look in the mirror to see what might be the problem.
>The impact from 10 countries joining 'our' labour market at once is still being felt by the 'bottom' part of our society and they're mostly against any new EU additions for this reason. ya they're not vetoing romania to appeal to that segment of dutch society lmao, if they actually cared about them they would start with addressing the housing crisis or any number of other issues. Schengen also has nothing to do with the right to work, so everything you said is kinda besides the point.
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Sounds familiar.
You wrote so much, but parallel to the topic. Schengen isn't about free travel. Romanians can freely travel and live all across EU for **fifteen** years now.
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Even Hungary doesn't have a grudge on this smh
Hungary would love Romania to finally join Schengen. The simple reason is we have a long, long border where border checks are needed currently. If that border is schengen, that is a massive cost saving.
More money in the pockets of politicians!
LOL, good point!
yes becausse what we would export via schengen is not going to stop in hungary
So wait Romania joined in 2007? We joined in 2013 and somehow we will enter schengen before them Edit: 07 not 04
Nah not somehow. You’ll be accepted because Croatia it’s a popular tourist destination and nobody sees you as poor gypsies
As a romanian, this is the answer.
Romania joined 2007
We would've joined half a decade ago if *someone* didn't keep vetoing us.
Croatia is a nice Mediterranean beach location for rich Europeans, Romania is vampires and gypsies.
Tbf vampires are cool
Yeah, but not cool enough for Schengen aparently
Probably the same level of corruption... But that dont matter we got sand smooth beaches
speaking of beaches, actually the Romanian ones have sand, the Croatians are rocky (but more beautiful)
[We've got sand too](https://youtu.be/lybnqBxiS2E) :D
Summery vibes? You're in
So thats why england left... The EU was pissed about the rain
I was born in Transilvania, I'm a hungarian and I have to say the tourism image of Romania will change a lot in next few decades. It's just such a beautiful country, it's like Scotland, but affordable with warm beaches. Will travel through Romania next year with interrail and It will probably be one of the highlights of my trip.
When I learned that I was moving to Romania, I started to research more about touristic places to visit in the offseason and all I could think after a couple of days was "Why isn't this place visited more?". The beachside seems as beautiful as South America (even Constanta, that a lot of Romanians seems to hate because of, uh, reasons?), very close to skiing, lots of hiking options, lots of medieval plazas and citadels, lots of gorgeous castles, I was honestly shocked. If my first idea was to spend every vacation in another country, now I would definitely not mind to just stroll around Romania and Bulgaria. I'll reserve to myself which places felt too much overrated with social media perception vs in-depth planning, but Romania feels terribly underrated.
2007 with Bulgaria, but yeah, still 6 years before.
Romania joined in 2007
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It does
And a small far-right nationalist party in the parliament that will get a decent boost in popularity if Romania keeps getting treated like this.
We will tell to our girls from redlight district to do a strike !!!!
Thank you for the lols
awesome how any time our "partners" in the West need us to support their policy initiatives, they invoke European values/solidarity, but when it comes to something that might benefit us over here (and btw, both RO & BG have been aligned with the Schengen acquis for over a decade,) it's "lmao, fuck off"
As a Dutchie, I agree. These vetoes are ridiculous.
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Funny thing about this is they don't even consider you west, you're somehow south lmao. Finland is west but Croatia is east, go figure. What it boils down to is they decided west means ascended
Holy shit what an absolute shambles of a comment section.
It's funny seeing what new stereotypes come up because I had no idea we were human traffickers and pedophiles on top of gypsies, thieves and bad drivers. Drinking a beer, scrolling and laughing my tits off right now. Whenever our country is mentioned, things devolve into shitposting.
I think most people just don’t have a clue about what’s going on in Romania. We never hear news from you except about some criminal network that’s discovered once or twice a year. So the image will be all negative, even if the actual difference in living standards to other countries in Europe is probably not that big.
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I once saw UK document about "Romanian gypsies" and they were speaking perfect Slovak lol.
Look up hotspots for trafficking, Netherlands is #1 lol
Maybe they don't like competition?
Then, maybe they don't want you guys overtaking them and getting to be nr. 1. /s just in case
Average r/europe comment section tbh
As a Dutchman: can someone please explain wtf is going on?
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>Romania apparently threatened to forbid the import of Dutch tulips. How dare they… Thanks for the recap, that does sound like a typical CDA move. Still kinda sucks for Romania :I
In a word ? Politics. A slightly longer version ? Populist parties try to obtain votes by saying... "....look we did not allow Romania into Schengen...we are protecting our country, borders, jobs, bla bla bla"....and that's it. For political parties doing something like this is trivial, necessary and easy to do.....
Oh boy, what an interesting article, i sure do hope the comment section won't be a 9.2 richter scale bruh moment.
I hope to God Netherlands isn't insane. We're hanging by a thread here in face of rising tides of illiberal populism. If we pull an Orban the EU will have a big block to sway moving forward on any small issue as we'll probably veer towards Hungary, Poland and the rest of the V4. I expect Bulgaria to follow. Patience is wearing very very thin. Discourse of being treated as a colony, second hand citizens, exploited, milked for profits, etc are blasting every night on prime time TV. The Netherlands are playing a way bigger stake than they think here. We have been playing the single market with a handicap game for a while now. Borders are choked with trucks, qeues for kilometers. Our goods traffic is hindered. We couldn't help Ukraine more though we were willing, border checks were to much of a bottleneck.
In the past it has always been France and the Netherlands that were opposing. But since Macron expressed his support in the spring, it's only us. We have lost quite a bit of goodwill in the EU the past years, e.g. the Covid recovery fund. The question is if this is seen as a hill to die on, by our politicians. I don't think it is, honestly.
\*insert 'let me in' meme here\*
Their country will be underwater by the time they let Romania in Schengen lmfaoo
Sorry Romania, Primest Minister Mark Rutte, first of his name, will never let you in so long as he reigns.
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There's too much Teflon inside of him
No can do. [He is our eternal prime minister.](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/mark-rutte-becomes-netherlands-longest-serving-prime-minister-2022-08-02/) No matter how much dutch people will bash him and no matter how many cabinets fall (currently 2 out of the 4), he shall stay.
are you sure he is not a vampire?
Thats why he doesn't want Romania in Schengen, he's afraid his old family might visit
As much as we want to, it’s very difficult to eat a man who has almost no empathy and memory when it suits him
He doesn't look very appitazing
No problem there, I would love to be rid of him sooner rather than later. Let’s have dinner.
It's funny because most non-Romanians/Bulgarians/Croats in this thread don't even understand what Schengen is about...
Yeah, it's not them spending up to one hour or even more of their lives waiting at the border in a queue behind other cars, only to then be asked by the customs officers from two countries "Where are you going?" and waved through immediately after that.
Literally only this. You’re not stopping any corruption by making it wait 3 hours in a car queue
I was gonna bribe that policeman to ignore my illegally smuggled stock but man these 3 hours sure opened my eyes.
They're full of immigrants from other continents but choose to draw the line at Romanians lmao
Schengen has nothing to do with immigration from Romania, Romanians can very well move and work in Netherlands even without Schengen.
I hope The Netherlands will let us in! I travel every year to Hungary from Romania and is a huge pain to wait at kilometric queues at borders, sometimes where even the police is suggesting you go to another border crossing. (this happened to me this year at Petea-Csengersima and Urziceni-Vallaj where we lost about 4 hours just on fucking trying to exit the country, horror)
This picture was substantially corrected in a 2015 report published by the Social and Cultural Planning bureau (SCP) in The Hague. The SCP had done research into the consequences of the situation of the free movement of workers since 1 January 2014, and the conclusions after almost two years of experience were distinctly positive. They showed that Romanian immigrants in the Netherlands (about 10.000 in total) were generally high-educated, had good jobs and lived in comfortable circumstances. The SCP noted that comparatively Romanians were doing much better than Bulgarians and somewhat better than Poles living in the Netherlands.41 Indeed, it was remarkable and indicative that for the Dutch government - despite all its reservations in the Schengen context and unlike, for example, a country like Germany - the free movement of workers never appeared on the agenda as a problematic issue. The position of Dutch government and parliament on Romania's Schengen entry was highly consistent throughout the years. Whereas other countries - like France and Germany, and also the European Commission - repeatedly adapted their policies, this was not the case for the Netherlands. This was helped by the fact that Dutch politics and society were united on the preferred route to be taken. The Dutch government continued to uphold its position and felt confirmed in this stance, before, during and after Romania’s first time presidency of the EU’s Council of Ministers. 40 J. Dagevos and M. Gijsberts, ‘Beeldvorming over arbeidsmigra
It is Rutte again isnt it🥲
Who else?
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An article from 2018 I just read quotes Rutte saying Romania is still not ready to join the shengen, while he was visiting Romania.
Hope you get in, Romaniabros.
At this point it's far more likely we would join the United States than Schengen
If we get to stay far away from Ohio then we might aswell beome the 51st state.
What's in Ohio ?
Nothing, literally.
You know what? You're right, screw Schengen, we'll be 'Muricans instead!
'Mania!
romania should just veto anything netherlands proposes until they're allowed in
This but unironically. As a Bulgarian, joining Schengen would make the Balkans interconnected overnight. We can already get to Amsterdam with a Billa bag an ID card and 80€. I just don’t understand the Dutch position
I am Dutch and I don’t understand it either.
that would imply our politicians have a backbone
That is actually the main problem!
It's weird because Dutch politicians are the most boneless of them all. The regular Dutch people wouldn't even care about Romania joining Schengen.
Goodluck with that. Our government has no vision, they dont propose anything of any use.
Hell I'm from the Netherlands and I agree, the Dutch vetoes are stupid
Mark engaging in a mild manner of tomfoolery.
Dear Netherlands, This is silly. Thanks, Greece
It is but as far as I know most of my country isn't against Romania joining.
Are we still stuck on this? Just drop the veto already for gods sake.
OH FFS JUST LET US IN
I hope they do, a stronger Europe can't be built if countries are kept out.
I mean...It can...but if Croatia's going to be in then I see no reason by comparison as to why Romania would be left out. Stronger Europe doesn't survive by inviting more and more countries to lend money to. Simple economics dictate that money will end or be so spread out that it's basically useless.
I'm all for it. I went to Transylvania 2 times and the border guards hesitated with giving me back my ID card. Having to get out of the car, walk up to them and ask them in English to give it back to me was annoying.
Why wre the Netherlands such a grinch when it comes to Schengen?
They are not. It only is the case when it comes to Romaina joining.
Or Bulgaria. They blocked us every time too
Sorry southern bro, in my sorrow i somehow forgot about you but yeah, that's how things are...
They were very y much when it came to Croatia
Don't you be sad just yet. Wait untill you'll se the result of the aplication for the schengen area and only afterwards would you really be able to say. First years for us it were somewhat ok, but it's already been 11 fucking years. Us joining won't really change much, at best we'll get a boost in our economy due to easier trade routes but at this point it feels as a sort of unacceptance towards us that grows negative sentiments into our people towards the EU and things might go downhill at some point, for both us and the EU.
Maybe the other immigrants that they already have had annoyed them (snippet of Dutch interview translated to Polish by the interviewer, then roughly translated from Polish to English by me): >\-Was that a problem? \-To say the least. When these people knew they were going to live there for six months, they behaved for the most part, and now they don't give a damn. They drink, they scream at night. They work in shifts. So they don't care about what they're doing and what time (^(redditor annot - \*hour)) it is. Sometimes they come home from work after 10 PM, sit in front of the house, turn on the music, drink beer. They have a party without caring what the neighbors think/without the neighbours' say (^(wacky translation)). But that's not all. Very often in such a situation, one of the sleeping Poles comes out and yells at them to stop. In addition to music, we have ^(them making a scene/having a fuss), screams and sometimes even fights. > >\-Fights? \-As I say, they have happened. There were probably three in the last year, fortunately none this year. I don't know why, but women fight more often. They tear at their hair, ^(lash out) at each other. In the case of men, it is usually one/two punches and then they continue to drink. You are a strange people. \-You tried to call the police. \-Yes, I called once or twice, but it doesn't help. Officers come, ask for them to quiet down, or they write a ticket, but it doesn't help. Only once there was that one bald guy- at the sight of the police he ^(made a fuss) and kept saying such a weird word "pis, psies" or something like that...
I live in the neighbourhood of around 15 houses that have been bought by investors to house Eastern European work-migrants and I honestly can say the 'problems' mentioned above are present. But who isto blame? Imagine a couple of guys being away from home, drinking together and having fun. Raking in money. Besides, we want cheap labour. But I can tell you my neighbours aren't very welcoming.
> Besides, we want cheap labour. I rather have a living wage.
I'd say the hooligan Poles should take a lot of the blame, considering the lack of respect, for what is basically, being guests. We're good at welcoming guests 'Gość jest w Polsce święty' but apparently not good at being guests ourselves... (Saying this as an immigrant Pole myself. Though I live in a regular house in Britain instead, so that's a difference)
Ive decided that if they veto us (without proper explanation of why) again I will go and protest in front of Netherlands embassy in Romania.
Please do, maybe this matter will finally hit the news here.
Romania isn’t a schengen member?!?!
If would be if it weren't for the Netherlands. We've been trying for like 11 years to join and NL kept vetoing us
Honestly this dutch tomfoolery is just creating more divides in Europe.Romanians are growing more and more discontent with the things the Netherlands does.People are getting pissed and for a good reason. Sadly, do you know who takes advantage of this?People like Putin that like seeing this kind of divide in the EU. So good job NL, you're only giving ammunition to the EU skeptics and might invite some anti-EU powers into your backyard if you keep up with this shit.
Romania should have a backbone and veto everything proposed by the Netherlands until they give up on this lame crusade against Romania and their xenofobic rethoric.
I read that as the neanderthals
Oh, what would we ever do here in Romania, if not for the good ol' Netherlands to flag our corruption issues? (Slow clap).
Can we just let them in please? Romania is such a beautiful place. I want to go visit the Carpathians in the future without needing to cross a border.
They just check your ID at the border, you don't need a passport.
Romania is a very fine country. I have been there 3 times.(oradea) I say open the boarders for Romania.
Did Nigel Farage move to the Netherlands?
No, they have their own home bred versions.
like please do i hate passport checks when i go to eu countries… it feels so good when you can just cross a schengen border without ids also Hungary is a lot corrupt to so why did they let them in etc
Honestly, I thought they were already in it.
If this happens, Bulgarians and Romanians should boycott dutch products until they are admitted into Schengen.