Brussels, 20/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - The future of the European Border Guard Agency, the Dublin system and interoperability of European Information Systems will be the main subjects debated on Thursday 21 April in Luxembourg by EU Ministers of the Interior.
No decision is expected to be made at this meeting but the "security" agenda will dominate the morning exchanges, following the Brussels attacks on 22 March and the special meeting of Ministers for the Interior on 22 March.
The question of returning to the commitments made by the ministers on strengthening information exchange and the systematic processing of available data bases will definitely be discussed. To this end, ministers will debate the Commission communications on the interoperability of security information systems and at the borders, as well as the "smart borders package", which will set up an entry/exit system. Both of them will be published on 6 April (see EUROPE 11526).
On the question of interoperability, the Commission's idea is to identify fragmentation in the different systems (for example the Schengen Information System, EURODAC or even the future European PNR system) and to ensure that it is possible, by consulting a specific system, that information contained in other systems can be crossed.
On the issue of smart borders, the aim is to make life easier for travellers from third countries and to facilitate their registration, whilst more easily identifying people overstaying their visas. Some delegations support the proposals, such as France, which would also like this to be extended to European nationals.
With regard to migration, ministers will have a debate during dinner on ways of reforming the Dublin regulation. The Commission has indicated that it wanted this reform to be presented before summer. It should be pointed out that the Commission has proposed two potential options: one consists of developing the current system with a correction mechanism that involves a relocation instrument between member states (see EUROPE 11526). The other is more radical and envisages a system for distributing asylum seekers on the basis of quotas per member state, which are calculated on the basis of population and GDP.
On Thursday, there will be no question of choosing one of these two options, explained one diplomatic source but rather, having a more general discussion on the direction that ministers would like to go in. According to another source, preliminary discussions demonstrated that the first option was preferred by the majority of ministers and the apparent wish is to remain within the current framework, whilst ensuring that the regulation functions fully and that all the other possibilities are exploited to the full, explained the same source.
The other "formal" subject involves the future of the European Border Guard Agency upon which the Council has already taken a position by endorsing its general approach (see EUROPE 11526). The EP is expected to give its opinion towards the end of May. The Dutch Presidency of the Council of the EU's idea is to call on ministers to confirm the agreement of 6 April by written procedure, which is expected to be the case.
The regulation defines the intervention conditions for the future agency and creates within it an intervention reserve that can be deployed very rapidly to one sensitive point on the common borders.
Finally, on the subject of migration, ministers will also discuss the EU/Turkey agreement of 18 March, its implementation and particularly its aspects linked to resettlement or the visa waiver regime requested by Ankara and which the Commission currently intends to propose at the end of June. They will also return to the conclusions of 17 March summit, the progress made with relocating asylum seekers and activities in the so-called hotspots. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)