BRUSSELS
Romania's President, Trairan Basescu, expressed Friday his disappointment over the European Union's decision to block Romanian citizens' free movement in Europe, after his meeting with the European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in Brussels.
"We cannot continue like this forever," he said, addressing the EU members who rejected Romania's bid to enter the Schengen Area, a grouping of 26 European countries that allow citizens to cross shared borders without internal checks.
Germany and the Netherlands are the main opponents of Romania's entry to the Schengen Area and point towards the low marks Romania recieved in the EU's Cooperation and Verification report last month.
The report highlighted high-level corruption in the country and urged for a more transparent judiciary.
Barroso said Romania technically met all of the criteria to be one of the Schengen countries and should be allowed to integrate in to the Schengen Area. Romania has been an EU member since 2007 but its citizens are not able to move freely around Europe due to the social, economic and security concerns of major EU members.
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