Brussels, 14/09/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 13 September, the political groups of the European Parliament decided to reactivate discussion with the European Council and to resume work on five dossiers that had been blocked in June this year as a reaction to the decision by the EU home ministers, on 8 June in Luxembourg, not to involve the European Parliament in recasting the Schengen evaluation mechanism.
The main Parliament political groups, except for the ECR group, which felt they had been put on the sidelines and ignored, had then decided to put five dossiers on ice, including those on the future European PNR (passenger name records), on decisions reached after European investigations, and on combating attacks against information systems. This was in an attempt to make the Council backpedal on its Luxembourg decision.
The Parliament has not yet officially received assurance that this will be the case but has been able to ensure that the Council “does not vote unilaterally on its reform of the Schengen evaluation mechanism”, a source explains, and that the whole of the dossier will be voted on at the same time. The Parliament therefore trusts it will be able to have a vote, according to codecision procedure, on the two chapters of the Schengen dossier (reform of the evaluation mechanism and amendments to the Schengen border codes which will, among other things, allow new internal border controls to be reintroduced).
On 8 June, EU home ministers had agreed that the Parliament should only be consulted on the proposal relating to evaluation of the Schengen mechanism. The European home affairs commissioner, Cecilia Malmström, had also denounced this ministerial decision and even deplored what she called a “very bad day” for Europe. Evaluation of the Schengen mechanism must in fact come prior to any decision to restore controls at internal borders and the Parliament hopes to be able to take a stance on those controls in full knowledge of the facts.
On the Council side, resumption of the work was also welcomed, with the Cypriot presidency at the task having hailed this as a “positive step”. Resumption of discussions does not mean, however, that MEPs are ready to put their reports up for voting. For them to do that, it will be necessary to have a new decision from the conference of presidents of Parliament political groups, which will come about if Council concessions are deemed satisfactory. On the Council side, there is also a call for caution, with a source indicating that it is not yet at all certain that ministers will go back on their decision taken on 8 June. (SP/transl.jl)