Schengen. In a statement on Romanian Border Police Day, prime minister Nicolae Ciucă said the fact that the latest report on the state of the Schengen area urges the European Council to adopt decisions allowing Romania to join this passport-free area is recognition of the efforts made by this country to secure its borders. Ciucă also said that the last few years have been a challenge for the border police personnel, who have had to deal with unusually high border flows as a result of the pandemic and, especially the Russian aggression against Ukraine. He added that the government will continue efforts to secure the country’s borders in keeping with the commitments made by Romania as a member of the European Union and as a candidate to join the Schengen area.
Ukraine. Ukraine continues efforts to resume grain exports from Odessa and other Black Sea ports in the wake a missile attack that placed a question mark over Russia’s commitment to an agreement to unblock Ukrainian grain exports to address the global food shortage caused by war, Reuters has noted. Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the strikes on Odessa as „Russian barbarism”, saying they show that Moscow is not to be trusted in implementing Friday’s grain deal brokered by Turkey and the United Nations. The United States and the European Union have also strongly condemned the attack.
