BUCHAREST, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- Romania will give priority to advance the negotiations on the 2021-2027 multiannual financial framework during its mandate at the Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU), Prime Minister Viorica Dancila said on Tuesday.

"The cohesion policy has both a symbolic value for the advancement of the Union and a concrete one that generates definitely added value in the direction of ensuring convergence and reducing development gaps," she said in joint statements with her visiting Slovak counterpart Peter Pellegrini.

According to her, both Slovakia and Romania, as beneficiaries of this policy, are clear evidence of the importance of this policy at European level.

As regards the EU's internal security, the Romanian prime minister underscored that her country intended to pay special attention to the efforts to ensure a consolidated internal security framework in the European Union, to the benefit of the European citizens and to support the restoration of the Schengen Area's functionality.

On his part, Pellegrini assured his Romanian counterpart that Slovakia fully supports Romania's integration in the Schengen space, an enlargement of the space being necessary for a better protection of the European Union.

"If a country meets the conditions for joining Schengen and demonstrates its technical readiness, it should be introduced to the Schengen zone," he said, stressing that "it is unacceptable to condition the acceptance or refusal of entry in Schengen on political matters, because this is not beneficial to the European policy."

Pellegrini promised that Slovakia stands by Romania from the perspective of taking over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union at the first half of 2019.