Brussels, 19/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - EU home affairs and justice ministers meeting in extraordinary Council in Brussels on Friday 20 November following the recent terrorist attacks in Paris are likely to back a number of calls from France, including on a targeted review of the Schengen borders code.
The purpose of this review is to allow systematic checks on European nationals at the external borders of the EU. Ministers, who will adopt conclusions on the broad issue of “responses to terrorism”, are also expected to give stronger political backing to the European PNR project (gathering information on air travellers), currently under negotiation with the European Parliament, and support a tightening up on registering migrants in Greek and Italian hotspots. They are expected, too, to stress the need for more rigorous checks on migrants' passports against police files, such as the Schengen Information System (SIS).
In the wake of the announcement by the European Commission of a raft of measures (see EUROPE 11433), ministers could also ask the Commission to use the opportunity presented by the smart borders package, scheduled for March 2016, to revise Article 7.2 of the Schengen borders code to require all European citizens - and not just third country nationals - to have their identity papers checked when they return to the EU from abroad. Their identity papers should also be checked against files such as the SIS and the Interpol database of lost or stolen documents.
This review, which is not fully supported by the Commission, would seem to be strongly backed by the member states, a source in the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council said on Thursday 19 November. Already there was “a call made in February” following the Charlie Hebdo attacks, to “revise the legal texts that we have so as to allow more systematic checks on European nationals at the external borders”, said this source, expecting that such a revision would be done as quickly as possible. The situation inside the Schengen area could be discussed on the sidelines of the Council meeting but no mention is made of this in the draft conclusions. A debate on this issue has already been scheduled for December.
While awaiting the revision of the Schengen code, the member states will be asked on Friday “immediately” to further tighten external border controls already applied to European nationals dependent on the risk criteria published by the Commission in the aftermath of the January 2015 attacks. However, for any such systematic controls to be effective, the databases on EU citizens will have to be sufficiently comprehensive and up-to-date. Ministers are thus expected to undertake to provide more information on foreign fighters in the SIS 2 database. French Home Affairs Minister Bernard Cazeneuve was critical on Thursday that no information had been provided by the other member states on Belgian citizen Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the alleged organiser of the 13 November attacks. National authorities should also be trained in the use of SIS and SIS 2.
Direct link with immigration flows. The Frontex agency that manages flows of immigration is also to have a stronger mandate for tackling terrorism, according to the draft conclusions document. Quizzed about this, a European Commission source said that proposals expected by the end of the year for European border guards would incorporate this aspect of the fight against terrorism. While they are unwilling to admit the link publicly, justice and home affairs ministers will bear in mind that Syrian passports were found near some of the 13 November attackers in Paris and some of the terrorists were registered in the refugee hotspots at Leros in Greece. The draft conclusions document will stress the need in the current refugee crisis of ensuring systematic registration, including the taking of fingerprints, for all immigrants entering the Schengen area, and will also stress the need for systematic security checks of their identity documents, databases such as SIS 2, Interpol's databases, visa information systems and national police records. All hotspots should be suitably equipped to carry out these security checks and the Europol agency should deploy experts at the hotspots to carry out secondary security checks.
On the question of the European PNR, the French prime minister, Manuel Valls, said on Thursday that it was more necessary than ever for the EU to adopt the PNR legislation because it is “needed for our collative security”. At their meeting in Brussels, ministers are expected to stress the urgency of the matter and the priority of finalising the European PNR before the end of the year, which should include infra-European flights and data retained for a sufficiently long period. All crimes should be covered by the system rather than simply cross-border crimes as desired by the European Parliament.
The conclusions document welcomes the European Commission's firearms proposals (see EUROPE 11433) and suggests boosting the role of Europol, which will have a special counter-terror unit from January 2016 onwards. On the question of the financing of terrorism, the draft conclusions document calls for a boosting of the work done by financial intelligence cells and for implementation of the Financial Information Action Group. Ministers are expected to call again for an extension of the European criminal records information system (ECRIS) to nationals and welcome the Commission's promise to unveil a directive to revise the 2008 anti-terrorism directive.
According to the head of Europol, Rob Wainwright, 5,000 Europeans have travelled to Syria and Iraq in recent years to train as fighters. There has been a doubling of information provided to Europol by national police forces, but more is needed and most of the information comes from just five member states, he said at a hearing at the European Parliament's civil liberties committee on Thursday. According to Europol, there are so far 10,000 individuals suspected of being “facilitators” in helping people travel to Syria. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)