Luxemburg, 12/06/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 12 June, the German presidency confirmed that border controls, at both land and sea borders, in the countries due to join the Schengen area would be lifted from the end of December 2007, and by no later than March 2008 for air borders. “Conditions for enlargement will probably be right by the end of the year. We are making good progress on this issue,” said German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble at a press conference. The green light for the 10 states which joined the EU in 2004 to become part of the Schengen area will formally depend on a positive assessment of their ability to control their external borders, and their ability to join the common Schengen computerised database, Schengen Information System (SIS), linking their authorities (police, justice, customs). The lifting of border controls, initially scheduled for October 2007, was delayed by hold-ups in the second generation Schengen Information System (SIS II), to which the new states' security services should be linked. As a consequence, “SISone 4 All”, an extension of the current system, is being used until SIS II comes into service. In line with the “SISone 4 All” timetable, the member states involved should be linked by the end of August at the latest, Ministers said. There will then be an assessment period. “Work is on-going and is on track,” Mr Schäuble said of the temporary system. The final decision to remove controls is likely to be taken at a meeting of Interior Ministers in autumn 2007. SIS II, which has not been jettisoned, should be ready to operate from 17 December 2008. Justice, Freedom and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said that the implementation of SIS II had been planned in all member states. He also announced that, at the end of the week, he would travel to the Czech Republic and Slovakia, then he would again visit Poland to see how implementation of the system was progressing. SIS, which is based in Strasbourg, has some 17 million descriptions, more than 90% of which refer to stolen items. Some 800,000 - undesirables, sought by the police - also feature. 17 pieces of information per second can be dealt with. The main purpose of SIS II is to improve recognition of persons, through a store of biometric data (photographs and fingerprints). (bc)