Brussels, 07/06/2012 (Agence Europe) - Meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday 7 June, EU27 home affairs ministers decided to step up their fight against illegal immigration in the Schengen area and to protect against failings at EU borders, for which they mainly blame Greece, agreeing to the need for internal border controls to be restored in certain circumstances. Such a mechanism, triggered in exceptional circumstances, could be set in place for six months, renewable three times (two years at most) and should be used as a last resort, i.e. when all other assistance measures to the faulty member state have failed. Although counter to the Commission's wishes, it will be the Council that will decide, by qualified majority, whether border controls should be restored. No member state will be able to act unilaterally.
Cecilia Malmström, European Home Affairs Commissioner, expressed disappointment on Twitter at the outcome of the meeting and criticised the “lack of ambition” shown by member states on this reform. Upon her arrival in Luxembourg on Thursday morning, she had even said she hoped discussions would fail and that there would be “no agreement” on Schengen reform, fearing that member states would use the new rules unwisely.
On the table for over a year now in the wake of the Arab Spring when thousands of migrants arrived on the shores of Europe, recasting of the area of free movement as sketched out by ministers on Thursday is less ambitious than what some governments had advocated some time back, especially the former French government. Home Affairs Minister Claude Guéant had hoped that, in the event of serious failing on the part of another member state, a government should be able to restore controls of its own accord at its own borders for a duration of 30 days, before taking the matter before its European partners. In the compromise unanimously reached on Thursday, solitary decision-making will no longer be possible. It will be up to the Commission, after having noticed a worsening in the situation in a given country over more than 3 months, to make a proposal suggesting that temporary controls be restored, together with a recommendation from Council.
A Council source said the temporary control mechanism could, moreover, prove difficult to implement for member states that have to prove there is a threat to their internal security, that there is no effective alternative measure to resolve the problem, and that the other methods, such as resorting to Frontex missions, have also failed. The re-establishment of border controls will only be possible after the situation in the country in question has been re-assessed, and could therefore take several months to set in place.
Also, with this new mechanism, EU27 home affairs ministers have created conditions in which a member state could, in the future, be suspended de facto from the Schengen area, if the case is sufficiently extreme. Greece, given its border with Turkey, is today at the heart of their concerns. Schengen member states, however, wish to avoid seeing this happening again, the idea being to give the countries responsible for overseeing common borders a means of pressure. Still outside Schengen, Bulgaria and Romania are also concerned.
The European Commission sees this as a setback. Last September, the Swedish commissioner had tabled proposals whereby she planned to have a hold over of the border control dossier. Her objective was, at all cost, to avoid the multiplication of situations in which member states would have an occasion to reinstate controls. She had therefore taken on a considerable role in the decision-making process, strongly challenged by the EU27 on Thursday.
The EU27 meeting in Luxembourg, however, caused another disappointment. Ministers decided to distance the European Parliament from the Schengen assessment mechanism, the results of which will above all be used to justify the re-establishment of internal border controls. The Council chose to amend the legal base of the proposal for recasting the mechanism tabled in September by the Commission and to only keep to consultation. The Commission had, for its part, chosen co-decision. On Thursday, the European Parliament denounced what it called an unacceptable act on the part of the Council, saying it was ready to fight, not only on its role in the assessment but also on the method for deciding on reintroducing controls. The Greens/EFA Group said ministers are bringing the Schengen agreements and the principle of border opening into question. Daniel Cohn-Bendit said: “The Schengen system is transnational by nature. It is therefore logical and fundamental for any decision on temporary reintroduction of internal border controls to be taken at Community level and not reduced to national arrangements”. The ALDE Group considered the Council had simply declared war on Parliament by distancing it from co-decision. Guy Verhofstadt, the group leader, said that, by taking such a decision, the Council had sent a clear signal that they will find any pretext whatsoever to close borders in the way that they are closing all the doors. That, he said, is unacceptable. The Parliament will examine whether it is appropriate to initiate legal action against the Council, he added. (SP/transl.jl)