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Comment by ChuckNorris89 | Hacker News Reader

Hungary and Poland aren't the first to abuse the unanimous-1 veto.

The Netherlands always vetos Romania's application to enter the Schengen zone as Romania's harbors to the Black Sea will provide cheaper alternatives for import of goods to the Dutch ones.

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Had to validate the Netherlands claim out of curiosity. The claim is popular but even Romanian officials have stated this is not true [0].

[0] http://business-review.eu/news/pm-ciolos-future-of-constanta...

Mind you, not officially!

However, the endemic corruption could be the real reason.

And you want the Romanian government to admit that? Of course it's the Dutch who are jealous of a port which couldn't we worse located/s

Right, a port at the other end of Europe without good connections to the West, whose usage maybe makes sense only for ships passing through the Suez and Bosporus is a competitor to the ones sitting on the Atlantic.

And it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that the Romanian coastal surveillance system was conveniently down when cocaine started to shop up on the beaches.

I'm not sure about the merits of the original claim, but you can't dismiss the Suez like that. It's the connection you need between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean and it lends itself to a ton of traffic: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:32.2/cente...

Agreed. Additionally Greece, Italy, France, Spain suggest a port located near(er) the Suez canal isn't a threat to Dutch ports.

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