#Romania2019.eu/ European Commissioner Avramopoulos says Schengen must be strengthened

European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos stated on Thursday that Schengen represents "the greatest achievement" of all times, context in which he pleaded for its strengthening. 

He participates in the informal meeting of Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Ministers of the EU, which takes place in Bucharest, at the Palace of Parliament. 

We are here in Bucharest for an important meeting of the JHA Council, the high official said. There are three matters which we will discuss today. The first is Schengen. We must strengthen Schengen. Schengen is the greatest achievement of all times and it is our duty to maintain, strengthen and improve the free movement space. The first thing that we need to do is security. We must work together in order to solve the security issues, especially the online and offline terrorism. (...) We have to do more. It's what the citizens want from us, the European official stated prior to the meeting. 

According to him, temporary solutions should be found for migration and an agreement must be reached regarding the asylum system. 

Another thing that we must do is find temporary solutions for migration and, at the same time, we have to work a lot in order to reach an agreement regarding the asylum system. We've done a lot of things on the migration topic. We are not longer at the same point as we were three years ago, but we have to do more in the future, because we don't know what the future holds for us. (...) Europe should be better prepared for future challenges. We did a lot, but we still have to do more. In this sense, we need a strong political will of all the member states. (...) I am counting very much on the Romanian Presidency to reach an agreement, Dimitris Avramopoulos stated. 

He also talked about the elections to the European Parliament. The European Commissioner went on saying that the future elections to the European Parliament shouldn't hold us back, but, on the contrary, we should unite our forces and show political will and go further.