On Thursday 7 December, the Estonian home affairs minister, Andres Anvelt, reported that the home affairs ministers of the member states had had an animated and fairly emotional exchange of views on the future of the Schengen zone at their Home Affairs Council. Over lunch, the ministers were called upon to take position on the state of the area of free movement, between the control measures recently applied by certain member states and the draft amendment to the Schengen Code proposed by the Commission in September.
The discussions provided several countries with the opportunity to stress how much they want Schengen to return to normal, in other words an area with no controls on the internal borders. Links were also made between the Commission proposal to allow internal controls for longer due to terrorist threats and the reform of the Dublin regime, which is also a headache for certain countries.
Although no country was referred to specifically, some of the EU - the Baltic and eastern states - are not fans of the principle of controls on the internal borders, or the prolongation of these controls. Over the last two years, five countries, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Austria (plus Norway), extended these measures as many times as European law allowed them to. Very recently, Germany and Belgium carried out checks on airline passengers from Greece. France has also extended its controls due to attacks.
The Estonian minister said that it was a matter of discussing the mutual trust between the Schengen member states. It was also an opportunity for him to reiterate his support for Bulgaria and Romania to join the Schengen zone, as both of them have met all the conditions and should, he argues, be able to join the free movement area as soon as possible. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)