Flowers are the traditional way to say “I love you”. But in European Union etiquette, they can just as well be the side-product of a political spat.
Romanian authorities this week-end blocked six trucks filled with flowers from the Netherlands, citing health concerns linked to unspecified “dangerous bacteria”.
The blockade came – perhaps coincidentally, but likely not – just one day after the Dutch government said it would veto the enlargement of the passport-free Schengen zone to Romania and Bulgaria.
The Dutch are not the only sceptics when it comes to expanding Europe’s borders to include the eastern duo, a decision that requires unanimity among current Schengen members.
At least a dozen other countries, including France and Germany, lined up against Schengen enlargement last year, worried that though Bulgaria and Romania had met the technical requirements laid out in the accession programme, the endemic corruption in both countries had to be addressed first.
Mindful that the issue has the potential to create an East-West rift along the lines of the old Iron Curtain, some governments are now ready to back a compromise we detailed here last week, which involves a two-step entry into Schengen starting with airports.
Not the Dutch. As with the eurozone crisis and EU enlargement to Croatia, The Hague has had to take a recalcitrant stance in part to satisfy the far-right anti-immigrant reflexes of Geert Wilders, whose party the centre-right coalition depends on for its survival.
That has caused fury in Sofia and Bucharest. “EU rules are ignored as a result of strictly inner political consideration,” says Theodor Baconschi, Romania’s foreign minister. He then overtly blamed the Wilders alliance for the Dutch stance.
But the Romanian sanitary authorities flatly deny the floral hostage-taking and Schengen are related. The flowers will be on their way “in a few days”, one official told AFP.
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