Romania tracks down 192 people tagged by Schengen

(BUCHAREST) - Romanian police said Sunday that they have tracked down 192 people sought internationally and tagged in the Schengen information database since the beginning of the year.

The Schengen Information System is a shared database that uses a computerised system to place alerts concerning persons or property, which can be accessed by the authorities of each of the 25 member states.

Although Romania has not yet entered the border-free Schengen zone, the country's police have some access to the database, a spokeswoman told AFP.

Among the 192 people tracked down in Romania, 36 were targeted by an European arrest warrant, police said in a statement.

Two Hungarians and a Romanian accused of armed robberies in Hungary were among the people arrested by Romanian police.

More than 60 goods, including cars stolen in France and Germany, were also seized.

Twenty-three people wanted by Romanian authorities were also tracked down by Schengen member states.

Romania and Bulgaria, the two most recent members of the European Union, have declared Schengen accession as a national priority this year.

But Bucharest and Sofia look set to fail in their membership bids in March, with France and Germany publicly opposing such a move.

Berlin and Paris have said that a decision on the applications would be made once the two former communist bloc nations make "irreversible progress" in the fight against corruption, a criterion still to be defined.

But Bucharest insists that formerly Schengen enlargements were made only on the basis of technical criteria like the implementation of a secure border control system and warns against an "unfair change of the rules".