UDMR (Democratic Union of Hungarians of Romania) chair Kelemen Hunor on Monday evening stated that the United States of America have a new radical approach in their immigration policy, which does not targets the Visa Waiver programme in particular.

'You all saw that the United States have a new radical approach in their immigration policy. It is not up to Romania. This means verifications, it means technicalities, we will see. I hope that, if we do not succeed on March 31, at least we will have a predictable deadline for us and for everyone, since there is not just Romania on that list, so it is not up to us. We must do what we can, we must show and argue that according to the statistical data Romania meets all the conditions to join this programme. And this also means communication with the United States administration, at least at a technical level, because at a political level for now I see that we are not really succeeding in communicating,' Kelemen Hunor told the Euronews television channel.

According to him, 'immediately after the elections, there is a need to resume relations', assessing that 'the Romanian state made a mistake by not caring about having relations with the Republicans as well.'

'Today, waiting to enter into discussions with the Trump administration, via the institutional channels, is not enough. There are 100 heads of state and government who are waiting. Personal relations matter and Romania made a mistake here. The Romanian state made a mistake, because it did not take care to have relations with the Republicans. (...) So, after November 20, the former president Iohannis and the Foreign Ministry should have immediately contacted Trump's team,' stated the UDMR leader.

He drew attention to the fact that we must 'define our priorities and interests and then things will go quite easily, because then you know what you want to discuss.' AGERPRES (RO - writing: Catalina Matei, EN - writing by: Cristina Zaharia)