On Wednesday 2 June, the European Commission proposed to the Member States a two-stage strategy to strengthen the Schengen area of free movement, which has been in difficulty since 2015 due to a succession of crises (see EUROPE 12731/1).
First, it asked them to implement decisions already taken to strengthen the external borders, such as: - the implementation of the new Frontex mandate with its 10,000 agents; - or the interoperability of European information systems; - or the launch, as well, of new schemes, such as the ETIAS Visa Waiver programme.
It also proposed to revise the Schengen evaluation mechanism and in particular to withdraw the information notice from Member States 24 hours before an inspection takes place on the ground.
In a second step, it confirmed on Wednesday that it will submit a reform of the Schengen Borders Code later this year after the failure of the 2017 reform.
The Commission has drawn “all the lessons” from the health crisis and the idea of this reform, explained Vice-President Margaritis Schinás, will be to re-establish internal border controls in a “more proportional” way, with a mechanism for cooperation between Schengen countries facing the same threat.
Internal border controls should become a " measure of last resort”, added the Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson. “We must find other solutions than internal border controls to meet the challenges” that will continue to exist, from terrorist threats to pandemics.
To this end, the Commissioner will initiate a specific technical and political dialogue with those Member States that have been operating controls since 2015 on the basis of terrorist threats or to counter secondary movements of migrants, such as France, Germany, Sweden, Austria or Denmark.
With regard to the reform of the evaluation mechanism, which is a peer review mechanism, the Commission wants to reduce “the excessive length of the evaluation process” and to remedy the “lack of a strategic approach to evaluations and political discussions on the state of Schengen”.
The evaluation process will thus be reduced from 10 to 12 months to 4 months, and to 2.5 months in cases of severe impairments.
“Thematic evaluations should therefore be used more frequently to obtain a comparative picture of Member States’ practices, for example when implementing major legislative changes”, the Commission explains in a statement.
The mechanism will be based on seven-year evaluation cycles, as opposed to five years today, and the results of the Schengen evaluations will form part of the annual report on the state of Schengen with recommendations.
When a serious deficiency is identified, “Member States will be warned in advance and the Commission will immediately inform the EU Council and the European Parliament. The evaluated Member State should start to remedy the deficiency immediately, before the adoption of the evaluation report, and should inform the Commission and the Member States of the measures taken.
“Schengen has been under threat for some years, and this has been accentuated by the pandemic. Internal border controls have become the new norm, to the detriment of the right to free movement of persons. Moreover, there have been no consequences for EU governments who have not acted in a fair and proportionate way in response to the pandemic”, reacted Slovenian MEP Tanja Fajon (S&D), author of a recent Parliamentary Committee report on the Schengen area (see EUROPE 12727/6). The MEP is now waiting for a clear timetable for the review.
“After a year of uncertainty at the borders, S&D MEPs also want to see new specific rules for health emergencies to ensure fair and proportionate responses”, the European Parliament’s S&D group said in a statement.
EU Interior Ministers will have a first exchange of views on this strategy on 8 June in Luxembourg.
Link to the reform of the evaluation mechanism: https://bit.ly/3g4nwZN (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)