The Austrian foreign minister, Alexander Schallenberg, has stated that Austria will maintain its veto against Romania’s accession to the EU’s border-free

Schengen Area until there is a sustained decline in the number of asylum seekers.

The decision by Austria to block the expansion of the Schengen Area has prevented Bulgaria and Romania from joining the zone, and has led to the maintenance of border controls between these countries and Schengen Area members. Although the Netherlands vetoed Bulgaria, it approved Romania’s bid for membership.

However, critics from Romania had argued that the governing center-right People’s Party of Austria was using the issue of migration to keep its far-right contender, the Freedom Party, at bay.

Austria, which does not have external borders to non-EU countries, received almost 110,000 asylum applications last year, the highest per-capita rate in the EU, and nearly triple the number from the previous year.

Schallenberg declined to specify when Austria might lift its veto on Schengen expansion. Politico.eu has suggested that resolution to the impasse over Schengen looks unlikely in the short-term, given that the number of refugees arriving in the EU continues to rise. The business community in Austria, a major player in Romania and Bulgaria, is set to be one of the biggest losers of the Austrian government’s decision, along with Romanian citizens and companies. Photo by © Raimond Spekking / CC BY-SA 4.0 (via Wikimedia Commons).