Brussels, 18/06/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 19 June the committee on legal affairs of the EP (JURI) will take its turn to get involved in the debate raging between the MEPs and the Council for the last several days, over the governance of the Schengen zone, with the MEPs of the committee also to take position in an opinion by German member, Axel Voss (EPP), on the legal basis for the Schengen assessment system. The members of the committee will also hold a discussion with the Danish justice minister, Morten Bodskov, on selecting what they feel is the most appropriate basis, and will ask the president-in-exercise to justify the decision made by the home affairs ministers in Luxembourg on 7 June to opt for simply consulting the EP instead of the co-decision initially proposed by the Commission. This at least was the agenda laid down by JURI on Monday afternoon, with a meeting of the coordinators still to take place in the evening to confirm the programme. On 20 June, the minister will also have to explain himself before the committee on civil liberties (LIBE).
This vote by the JURI committee on the legal basis had already been scheduled for some time, stressed the spokesperson for this committee, and will, amongst other things, answer the question put by the LIBE committee, which is competent on the substance. However, the debates of 19 June will almost certainly take “a different turn with the recent row”, the spokesperson continued. The two institutions have been at daggers drawn since the home affairs ministers decided to remove the co-decision procedure on the Schengen assessment dossier, a process which will precede any moves to bring back controls on the internal borders. On the basis of Article 70, the Council argued that it was simply respecting the Lisbon Treaty and the Danish Presidency has repeated several times over the last few days that the EP had been informed of the home affairs ministers' choice throughout the reflection procedure. The MEPs challenged this line of argument, stating last week that the Danish Presidency and the member states had broken the Community method and shown contempt for the EP. The conference of the presidents of the groups of the EP even decided on 14 June to suspend legislative work underway on seven dossiers, including those on Schengen, plus the assessment mechanism and proposals on the Schengen borders code, until the Council thought better of its decision. These retaliation measures were supported by the competent commissioner, Cecilia Malmström, with the Swedish official describing as “reasonable” the postponement of the two reports on Schengen governance, and she also called on the Council to review its position. (SP/transl.fl)