Codru Vrabie is a civic activist, trainer and consultant on good governance, transparency, responsibility, and integrity in the public sector. He has contributed to many reform measures in justice and public administration. Vrabie has BAs in legal and political sciences (Romania, Bulgaria, the USA) and MAs in administrative sciences and European affairs (Romania, the Netherlands, Spain). He has worked for various Romanian civil society organizations since 1998. In 2010, Vrabie started working with the Leaders for Justice” programme, which was replicated in 2017 by the Republic of Moldova
A shortened version of this interview was broadcast on 21 August 2023 by the Bulgarian National Radio.
Mr. Vrabie, we know that Bulgaria and Romania have difficulties to convince Austria and maybe also Netherlands in the case of Bulgaria so that the door to the big Schengen is opened to them. What benefits could the Bulgarian-Romanian mini-Schengen bring to the two countries? What would it mean economically, technically, procedurally for them?
I’ve been proposing this mini-Schengen for almost ten years now and it never happened. I don’t know if it is still possible today or if it is necessary. But how to put it? There was this very recent meeting between Scholtz and Nehammer – the chancellors of Germany and Austria and they also discussed Schengen with relation to Romania and Bulgaria. And it seems that Austria is adamant to not accept both countries right now. My thought is the following: what if Romania and Bulgaria meet and decide to put the Schengen agreement in practice between the 2 countries. It will prove that it works. It will prove it to Austria, the Netherlands and whoever else is interested. Our claims that we are technically prepared will hold water and then the space in between Greece-Turkey and Hungary in the west will be opened. There will be a Schengen area between Romania and Bulgaria, that works exactly like the other Schengen area to the west in Hungary and to the south in Greece now.
From a legal perspective, we don’t need the agreement of the other European Union countries to start this cross-border cooperation between Romania and Bulgaria.This is only up to our own two governments and it would be probably the most important ambitious and transformative objective of the recent treaty that our presidents signed the joint declaration for a strategic partnership. What is more strategic than a mini-Schengen area?
You asked me about the economic implications. I am not an expert on economics. So I really don’t know. But there must be some cost cutting for transportation when you think of all the lorries that wait in line when they cross the border from Greece to Bulgaria then from Bulgaria to Romania. At least they can cut the waiting time and the cost of waiting at the Romanian-Bulgarian border. Then the procedures. What will change in terms of procedures if we do the mini-Schengen today is the exact same thing, which would change if we are admitted to Schengen in 2 years time. The difference is that we bring in the procedures two years earlier.
I know that there is talk about both Romania and Bulgaria joining the Schengen aerial space. It’s not going to create problems for individual passengers that fly into our airports. But that’s not the big impact in terms of perception because of individuals who travel. The real economic impact is going to be on the roads and on the railways and on the ships because this is where the economy needs the cost cut and that’s why Schengen exists. There is a limitation for imports and exports. If we create a mini-Schengen area, it would be the first bridge that actually helps us synchronize. Think about the approach up to now since 2007, when we entered the EU. All right now we are part of the European Union. What we need to do is synchronize with the West and Romania started its own path to convergence and Bulgaria started its separate road of convergence after 2007.
On the path to convergence what I am advocating when I say mini-Schengen is that Romania and Bulgaria should join forces across the bridge to start synchronizing themselves. And opening a new path together towards Western Europe may be a dream. It may be the case that it’s not going to happen. But I still think It would be a good idea.
Some of the opposition to this mini-Schengen idea between Bulgarian and Romania is that if the 2 countries go towards an alternative to the big Schengen again, they somehow admit they will remain in the periphery. They somehow accept that they don’t fight for the big Schengen. That is one argument. But there is also this argument that peripheries don’t cooperate with one another, they compete for the attention of the center. And if Bulgaria and Romania cooperate, they will have the logic of the center and it will move them closer to the center. How do you see these two arguments? Which has more value for you?
I think the second argument has more value. I don’t need to bring another argument to the table, than to remember what Serbia, Northern Macedonia and Albania did. These countries with their politicians realize that creating a mini-Schengen (the so-called Open Balkans) is important to their economies and it’s important also to the accession to the EU process for Northern Macedonia and Albania and also maybe for Serbia. It doesn’t hurt them. Why would it hurt us?
Okay, but there is also this issue of trust between Bulgarian elites and Romanian elites. Maybe you are aware of this issue as well. A mini-Schegnen requires a greater level of trust. Do we have such a level of trust which is necessary for managing a free border?
I think this is a chicken and egg question. Do we need more trust in order to cooperate or do we need to cooperate in order to have more trust? If we don’t start somewhere, nothing will happen. And when nothing happens, we will have a puddle of water that starts to rot, evaporate and die. So we need a change now. It’s a lot easier to start cooperation than to simply do nothing about it. Because right now the only thing that our foreign ministries do is they go and court the Austrian and Dutch governments. Ask them what can be done. When our government asks theirs what can be done, they will never come up with a specific answer from them. Because they have different political agenda so we need to do something else. Otherwise again if we keep on doing the same thing we cannot expect different results. We need to do something else.
Okay, final question. We now have both foreign ministers related to European institutions Luminița Odobescu and Mariya Gabriel. Do you expect that they will be more innovative in this regard?
No. Because they were socialized in the ways of the European institutions and I don’t think they have the ability to think outside the box. This is not a criticism. This is just an observation. When you are socialized in a specific way of doing things for a very long time, it’s very difficult to think outside the box. If we had individuals, with different perspectives coming into the ministries of foreign affairs, those individuals could have started to think outside the box and ask their advisers. Why wouldn’t they entertain this idea? It’s a matter of agency. Do they have a clear objective? Can they identify the resources and and the allies can you then put it to work in order to achieve the objective. Mrs Odobescu and Mrs Gabriel, I believe cannot formulate an objective that is outside the box of the EU. It is their socialization process.
Photo: The Friendship Bridge at Rousse-Giurgiu (source: Yavor Michev)
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