The meeting of European Parliament and EU Council negotiators on Thursday 31 January on the new Schengen Borders Code rules governing the reintroduction of internal border controls made some progress, a source close to the issue said. It was more or less agreed that Parliament will waive its request to allow the extension of temporary controls after six months on the basis of a decision by the EU Council, a process considered too rigid by the Council, which had excluded it from its mandate.
In return, Parliament would obtain more concessions on the risk assessment and the criteria for these assessments, which will also be required when extending temporary controls. This partial agreement has yet to be confirmed. Negotiators are scheduled to meet next week, on 7 February, to see whether this agreement in principle is being reached by the various groups in Parliament and in the Council. If this were the case, work could then be resumed to clarify the text and discuss the evaluation criteria and safeguards.
According to this source, Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos took part in the trilogue and expressed his scepticism about one of the measures adopted by Parliament, but also by the Council, aimed at removing the possibility of combining articles of the Code to carry out controls at internal borders, in this case Articles 27 and 29. According to this source, the Commission could thus act as a spokesperson for certain countries, perhaps France or Germany, which do not like the deletion of this combination of articles.
When contacted, Mr Avramopoulos' press services did not want to comment, but recalled that the initial proposal of September 2017 was intended to give Member States flexibility to respond to new security threats, preserving a European approach and ensuring that these controls remain an exception.
This Regulation was intended to respond to successive internal controls carried out by several countries, such as France, Germany, Austria or Sweden (see EUROPE 11881), controls that had become difficult to extend due to the rigidities of the Schengen Code. However, the initial momentum was stopped in Parliament and the Council, particularly by smaller countries concerned not to be affected by controls carried out by their neighbours (see EUROPE 12149, 12044). (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)