The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, held a telephone conversation yesterday with his Romanian counterpart, Bogdan Aurescu, with whom he discussed, among other matters, progress towards the granting of dual Spanish and Romanian nationality and Spain’s support for the country’s entry into the Schengen area.
“Good conversation with my Romanian counterpart, Bogdan Aurescu, to follow up on the issues discussed at the recent Spain-Romania Summit,” Albares stated through his Twitter account. “We also discussed the security situation in Eastern Europe, Spanish troops in Romania and the Schengen area,” he added.
“Very good telephone talk with my friend Jose Manuel Albares,” the Romanian minister declared, for his part, through the same social network. “Our extensive agenda focuses on sectoral, economic and security cooperation, and on advancing solutions on dual citizenship,” he continued. “I was assured that Romania can fully count on Spain regarding our Schengen accession,” he added.
According to the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs through its Embassy in Madrid, Aurescu addressed “as a priority” the issue of Romania’s accession to the Schengen area and “thanked Spain for its firm and constant support to this objective”. For his part, the same source continued, Albares “reiterated his country’s active support for Romania’s accession to the area of free movement, expressing his hope that progress would be made as soon as possible on this dossier, and his willingness to support Romania’s efforts towards a constructive solution to complete the accession process”.
Apart from this, Bogdan Aurescu underlined “the close cooperation in security matters in the framework of NATO” and thanked “especially” the Spanish participation in the air police missions (October 2022-March 2023) to protect Romania’s airspace. The two ministers also agreed to strengthen coordination in broader formats on security issues, “given the common concern to ensure the security of the European continent in the current difficult context.”
On the other hand, Minister Bogdan Aurescu and his counterpart “specifically addressed the start of negotiations on the bilateral agreement for dual nationality,” the Romanian government indicated. Precisely, one of the highlights of the first Spain-Romania Summit to which Albares alluded, held last November 23 in Castellón de la Plana, was the agreement between the two governments for the creation of a working group to address the possible dual Spanish-Romanian citizenship. There are currently 1,100,000 Romanians living in Spain, who represent the largest community of foreigners in our country. If the proposal goes ahead, Romania would be the second non-Ibero-American country (the first was France) and the third EU country (after France and Portugal) with which Spain has a dual nationality agreement.
The desire of the Romanian community residing in Spain to benefit from dual nationality had already been expressed twice by Bogdan Aurescu himself before his Spanish counterparts, specifically before Arancha González Laya in February 2021 and before José Manuel Albares in Madrid in October of the same year.
On the other hand, last December 9, the Romanian ambassador in Madrid, George Bologan, expressed his gratitude to Spain for its support for his country’s entry into the Schengen area of free movement, after Austria and the Netherlands vetoed that accession (and that of Bulgaria) during the meeting of EU Interior Ministers held that same month, despite the fact that both the European Commission and the other 25 Member States had considered that both countries were already prepared for it.
