The S&D group will remain the lead group in the European Parliament on the review of the Schengen Borders Code reform presented by the Commission on 14 December (see EUROPE 12853/1), having led the work on the previous reform in 2017, which was subsequently blocked by the EU Council, two sources familiar with the discussions told EUROPE on Tuesday 1 March.
The revision aims in particular to deal with pandemic situations, the instrumentalisation of migrants, and to strengthen the action of Member States against secondary movements of irregular persons.
The coordinators of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties now have to agree on the distribution of a series of texts that will be on the table at the end of 2021: the texts on strengthening police cooperation and the so-called Prüm II decisions, the future regulation on online sexual abuse of children, the regulation on the instrumentalisation of migrants, or the texts on hate speech. They will soon finalise this ‘package’.
The Renew Europe group, for its part, has inherited the report on the proposal for a Council decision extending the EU list of offences to hate speech and hate crime. The EPP group had views on the revision of the Schengen Borders Code and could therefore console itself with the texts on police cooperation. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)