Publication

This bulletin examines the link between Romania’s Schengen accession and the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM), which was created to monitor judicial reform and the fight against corruption in Romania and Bulgaria following their EU accession. The author argues that although there is no technical link between Romania’s Schengen accession and the CVM, a political link was created following France and Germany’s suggestion that Romania should not be admitted to Schengen as long as the CVM process continued. The author then contends that this condition is neither credible nor efficient and that Romania’s accession process to Schengen should be decoupled from the CVM.