EU Ministers of the Interior held a debate for the first time on Friday 13 October on the recent Commission proposals reforming the Schengen Border Code in an effort to adapt it to new security threats.
Unsurprisingly, several member states said they were unhappy that this reform will allow member states affected by serious threats to continue internal border controls for up to three years.
This reform of the Schengen Code was requested by France and Germany, as well as by other countries currently operating controls on certain sections of their borders, such as Sweden, Denmark, Austria and Norway. It extends the duration in which these measures can be implemented from six months to one year (article 25) (see EUROPE 11871). The Commission proposal also stipulates that a Council decision is necessary after a year if these countries in question want to renew these measures.
Several positions took shape during Friday morning’s discussion “even though no frontal opposition really emerged”, according to one European source, which considered that the discussion had not really led to the proposal stalling in any way. One group of central European countries, such as Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland, said that this reform was not an appropriate or effective response to the threat of terrorism. The Slovak minister of interior, Robert Kalinak, therefore repeated that he considered these measures as simply responses by politicians and that they had to discuss them again. When he left the meeting, he pointed out that they needed to make further “efforts” to save Schengen.
These countries as a whole considered that the response was not proportionate and other police cooperation measures would prove more efficient.
Supporters of this reform, such as France, Germany, Denmark, Austria and Sweden, believe that this reform is welcome, as indicated by the French minister, Gérard Collomb, when he arrived in Luxembourg. The Minister was accompanied by the German Minister for the Interior, Thomas de Maizière, and said was, “very happy” with the proposal, “even though on the modalities, we have a number of comments to make”. France does not approve of the fact that a Council decision is necessary after year to extend the measures. In this connection the French minister alluded to the issue of national sovereignty.
At the beginning of October, France also informed the European Commission that it was going to continue its controls until 30 April 2018. It reintroduced them after the Paris attacks on 13 November 2015 but they are due to expire at the end of this month.
As the four other countries are carrying out controls on certain segments of the borders, Germany also notified the Commission that it was extending internal border controls after mid-November, by using a different legal basis to article 29 of the Schengen Code (see EUROPE 11882). He explained that this measure had been taken in consultation with neighbouring countries.
According to one source, around 10 countries find themselves somewhat stuck in the middle and understand the position taken by countries that have been hit hard by terrorism but at the same time are eager to protect the area of freedom movement.
The Estonian minister, Andres Anvelt, said that “the rumours of the death of Schengen are exaggerated” and pointed out that they needed to find “the right balance” between maintaining the freedom of movement and security imperatives. In this connection he highlighted the effects in terms of cost (€7 billion a year if Schengen did not exist) as well as the symbolic ramifications if the Schengen area were to be abolished.
The European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Dimitris Avramopoulos, repeated the need to protect Schengen and strike the right balance, a balance he believed had been reached in the proposal put on the table. With regard to the extension of the controls notified by the six countries mentioned above, the Commissioner also indicated that on Friday he had requested them to apply these measures “in a European spirit”. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)