Meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday 13 June, the interior ministers of the EU27, accompanied by the Schengen associated countries, debated the state of health of the free movement area, but in the end were unable to approve the Political Declaration on Schengen envisaged for its 40th anniversary.
Faced with opposition from two Member States - Austria and Romania, according to one source - particularly over the language of certain parts of the Declaration, the Belgian Presidency of the EU Council had to withdraw this item from the agenda on the morning of Thursday 13 June.
At the end of the working day, the Belgian Minister of the Interior, Annelies Verlinden, explained that the Declaration was not yet “ready” for adoption, but that the Member States were clearly committed to the 10 undertakings set out in the text. This Declaration may therefore be approved at a later date.
This discussion on the Schengen area was an opportunity for the ministers or ministerial representatives to welcome the report on the state of Schengen presented by the Commission in April (see EUROPE 13392/12), in which it concluded that the countries had cooperated better in 2023, to reconfirm the priorities of the Schengen cycle, in particular to strengthen the external borders, but also, for some, to argue once again in favour of Bulgaria and Romania’s full membership of the Schengen area.
And this is one of the reasons why the Presidency had to withdraw its draft Declaration when it wanted to obtain more binding language on the practicalities of this membership. Austria is maintaining its veto at present, at least until the legislative elections in late September.
However, the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, was optimistic on Thursday in Luxembourg, saying she was “fairly convinced” that a decision would be taken “by the end of the year and even before the end of my term of office”.
In this Political Declaration, according to the latest text dated 31 May, the Member States undertook, among other things, to re-establish internal border controls only as a last resort and to continue to use new technologies to strengthen the Schengen external borders (see EUROPE 13428/10).
Child sexual abuse material online. Ministers also discussed on Thursday, on the basis of a progress report from the Presidency (see EUROPE 13429/12), how to move forward on the regulation on the removal of online child pornography content, which organises the monitoring of such content sent via private messaging services.
During a public debate on this item, France confirmed that it would soon be able to support the Presidency’s latest compromise proposal, subject to two adjustments designed, in particular, to ensure that encryption is protected and that technologies are available to ensure this protection when the regulation comes into force.
France welcomed the new scope of the text (only images and videos), the categorisation of risks and the new method for counting ‘hits’ (reports of CSAM content triggering detection orders).
Annelies Verlinden called on her partners to reach an agreement soon and to “move forward”. Commissioner Ylva Johansson also made this appeal, refusing to allow the EU to become “a haven for paedophiles”.
The Commissioner also pointed out that the situation had even worsened since the presentation of her regulation in May 2022, with twice as many reports of such content reported to Europeans by American bodies. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)