Brussels, 12/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - Just over two months after terrorist attacks cost 17 people their lives in France, the home affairs ministers of the EU, meeting in Brussels on Thursday 12 March, decided to speed up the implementation of coordinated systematic controls on European nationals crossing the external borders of the EU.
These controls will consist of trawling police databases for any signs of infringement, but will concern only one category of European nationals. The ministers have undertaken to implement these controls at their own level by June of this year. In the meantime, the European Commission will prepare the risk criteria authorising controls on certain individuals and will present guidelines for the European border guards. During this period, the member states will also have to verify that they have the equipment needed at their external border points to carry out these checks.
Status quo on 'Schengen Borders Code'. However, the ministers made no more progress on a possible revision of the Schengen Borders Code, which is still being called for by Paris. The French home affairs Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, argues that this minor revision of the Schengen Borders Code via a simple amendment would help to set in place obligatory systematic controls on all European nationals, not just on the basis of risk criteria.
However, it appears that Paris has failed to secure this point. Although there is no outright opposition to this minor amendment to the Schengen Borders Code, there is no appetite to do so immediately. The issue raises practical questions, such as the queues these controls could create in airports, the budget needed to increase the number of agents checking travellers and the level of technical infrastructure available in the member states. “We now need systematic and coordinated controls”, Bernard Cazeneuve said after the ministers' meeting. “More and more Europeans are engaging in Syria”; it is “vital that upon their return”, the competent authorities are able to identify them, he continued. “Systematic and coordinated controls now would already be a good thing”, said Cazeneuve, acknowledging that he still has to “convince” his European partners on the next stage, which would consist of amending the Schengen Borders Code.
Illegal content. Among the other discussion elements tabled on Thursday, the ministers agreed to make Europol the reference point for the identification of illegal content on websites. The ministers of the 28 countries of the EU also agreed on the timetable for implementation, which has also been laid down for July 2015. This project is particularly close to the heart of the British, who have a unit working with the social networks to identify websites with extremist content. The idea is to give Europol competence to collate all sites with content to be removed and to centralise the information fed in by the member states.
The next step will be the European Commission's presentation, in May, of its internal security strategy (see EUROPE 11267). The member states are also following developments in work on the 'European PNR' at the European Parliament and are aiming for an agreement by the end of 2015. (Solenn Paulic)