Proposition 53K2389

Proposition de résolution relative à la réforme de la Convention de Schengen.

General information ¶

Authors

CD&V Raf Terwingen
LE Georges Dallemagne
MR Jacqueline Galant
Open Vld Herman De Croo, Patrick Dewael, Gwendolyn Rutten
PS | SP Julie Fernandez Fernandez
Vooruit Bruno Tuybens

Submission date

July 19, 2012

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

Schengen Agreement European Union powers of the EP border control cross-border cooperation migration policy resolution of parliament

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR

Voted to reject

VB

Contact form ¶

Do you have a question or request regarding this proposition? Select the most appropriate option for your request and I will get back to you shortly.

Discussion ¶

Dec. 13, 2012 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

by Mr. Eric Thiébaut, the rapporteur, refers to his written report.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, colleagues, I can be quite short, even though I think it is a very important principle issue.

I believe that the free movement of goods, persons and services is a key pillar of the European Union. The Council recently decided to no longer grant the European Parliament the right to co-decision or co-decision on Schengen. But what are the rights of European citizens? What about democratic control? Are they abandoning the European approach that has always been followed in this regard?

The European Parliament reacted very fiercely a few months ago and announced political and legal action. The European Commission itself has also requested an adjustment.

The delicate point is the reorganization of internal border controls. In the European Union, the external border is becoming increasingly important and then the internal border controls should fade away. We all know that the debate about this regularly comes up when pressure is put on certain boundaries. I refer to the Arab Spring and discussions about it in Italy and France. Very often there is an internal debate that calls for border controls within the European Union.

The chain is as strong as the weakest link. One must dare to ask whether the controls at the external borders are sufficiently efficient and efficient, and whether an agency such as Frontex is indeed sufficiently performing.

I think that in the wake of an incident or an aggravating conflict, one may advocate for internal border controls but only temporarily and exceptionally. If Europe does not function optimally, if the European Union cannot adequately protect its external borders, then, in my opinion, one should not throw away the child with the bath water.

The system should be strengthened, instead of returning to a near-nationalist approach, where each Member State must reorganize its own border protection.

We find a paradox. Those who advocate a stricter Schengen scheme do not want to transfer more powers to the European Union at the same time. It is of two things one. Those who want to strengthen the Schengen Agreement and the European approach must also be willing to transfer more power to the European Union. Contradictorily, it is precisely the Member States that now shout that something is not working properly that refuse to transfer national powers to the European Union.

Another element that I would like to bring into the debate is that, in parallel with addressing the current problem of border controls, we should also seek to strengthen the European security and migration policy. The question was already discussed in the questionnaire. Police and judicial cooperation and cooperation in the European Union should be enhanced and information flow should be improved. All this is crucial for the proper implementation of the Schengen Agreements.

It is not enough to focus on strengthening the borders. Europe needs to cooperate more.

This is the mandate of the JAI Council, therefore the Council for Justice and Home Affairs, of which a great deal is expected. In the past few years, progress has been made slowly but surely.

Everything is being negotiated again at the very moment. What I’m talking about was the uprising just before the parliamentary recession. I mentioned that the European Parliament has responded, just like the European Commission. Belgium, our country, has actually put itself somewhat on the line of the European Commission and also of the European Parliament.

Mr. Speaker, this is an excellent time to have the present resolution accepted by the House.

What does the proposal demand?

In a very short summary – I am about to do this – it requires, first, that the democratic control of the European Parliament be liberated. This is a very important element. The European Parliament has responded. It was a touching free tribune of three tenors, notably Jean-Luc Dehaene, Guy Verhofstadt and Mrs. Van Brempt, if I am not mistaken. They have joined together in the pen and have stood up for the interests of the European Parliament. We must absolutely safeguard the control of the European Parliament.

Second, the decision taken by the European Interior Ministers on 7 June 2012 needs to be re-evaluated, as the resolution demands. It is about internal border controls, which for me should be an exception rather than a rule.

Third, the resolution proposal calls for better police and judicial cooperation. There was no discussion on this in the committee either.

Fourth is the legal basis. Regarding the legal basis, there is an ongoing discussion on whether we will use Article 77.2 or Article 70. Article 70 was repealed. What the draft resolution calls for is that, as long as Article 70 is effectively applied, the issue will be withheld. I refer to what the European Parliament is calling for in this regard, namely that a six-month review should be possible by the European Parliament. The last element of the resolution is that we will submit that point to the Court of Justice. Should that legal basis be Article 70 or Article 77.2? We want the Court of Justice to settle on this.

In summary, therefore, it is a question of democratic control by the European Parliament, the re-evaluation of the decision of 7 June, improved police and judicial cooperation, and the Court of Justice having to settle the discussion on the legal basis, namely Article 70 or Article 77.2.

It is important that Parliament can accept the draft resolution. At that point, the government, the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Interior will be supported by a unanimous Parliament to make the position once again overtake towards the European Parliament.

There was unanimity in the committee. I am pleased to note that the Minister of Internal Affairs has fully supported the text of the resolution.

For 400 million European citizens, the Schengen area means not taking a passport to travel, whether you are a tourist or a businessman. This is the result of a zone of free movement of people.

For many, Schengen is seen as the link that unites Europe – like the euro – but there is fear that this legacy will be compromised by the enlargement process carried out too fast for Romania and Bulgaria. These countries do not return to the Schengen area; there are shortcomings in the fight against corruption and local mafia and there is concern that they are one of the gateways of narcotic drugs on European soil. But also – and this is the subject of this resolution that my political group endorses – there is fear that this legacy will be damaged institutionally as a result of the willingness of governments of certain States to re-nationalise the management of the borders of the Schengen area.

The European Parliament and the Commission have been put on the tap in the June Schengen reform, a reform intended to facilitate the return of checks in case of need. This is a real institutional guerrilla between the European institutions and the Council. On the one hand, the European Commission is entrusted with the supervision of budgets, with a strong power of intrusion and control. On the other hand, with Schengen, the sovereignty of States is reaffirmed with force.

Indeed, if one can understand that it was necessary to go beyond the possibilities already offered to a State to re-establish controls at its borders – I recall, a reform demanded by France after the Arab Spring – it was not necessary to deprive the European Parliament of its word to say.

I take note that the discussion is ongoing and that the European Parliament is de facto involved, both on the legal basis of the decision and on the strengthening of the evaluation mechanism to be entrusted to the Commission.

It must be understood that this decision of June goes against the interests of the European citizen. What is needed is more cooperation between the police bodies and the European magistrates; it is more exchange of information between these services; it is the strengthening of Frontex’s human and technical resources to assist countries who must manage the EU’s external borders; it is a coordinated and effective fight against cross-border mafia groups, which thrive on drug money and human trafficking.

I remain convinced that the governance of the Schengen area should not be held hostage to a European Parliament concerned with respecting its prerogatives as a legislator and a council gathering the 27 interior ministers. For most of them, security is a priority and it must first remain a matter to be dealt with between states.

The risk that the Schengen reform will not succeed is real, as the interior ministers of the Council expressed in their meeting in June 2012 their willingness to legislate on their own. They expressed their willingness not to follow the ordinary legislative procedure regarding the proposal to revise the mechanism for mutual assessment of the Member States with regard to border surveillance.

The decision of the 27 ministers to exclude the co-decision procedure between the Council and the European Parliament has caused tensions between the two institutions. In September 2012, the European Court of Justice issued a judgment on the maritime operations of the European Agency for the External Borders (Frontex). In this case, the European Parliament had referred to the judges to have a text adopted by the Council canceled. The judges gave the European Parliament the right, considering that its rights had not been respected. Should we go through this again in order to respect the rights of Parliament? I do not think so.

Nor should the Schengen reform be held hostage to a surcharge around the rhetoric of porous borders. This surcharge, carried out by the eurosceptic, populist and nationalist parties, is completely wrong on the solutions to bring to the regulation of immigration. Instead of emphasizing the principles of cooperation, the controls at national borders are blamed, challenging the principles of free movement inherent in Schengen cooperation.

In conclusion, the reform of the Schengen governance still appears as an absolute imperative for the European institutions, as well as for the Member States, in order to avoid re-emitting a bilateral crisis, as the Union experienced with France and Italy in the spring of 2011. In order to restore mutual trust, states need to appear as reliable partners with each other, hence the redesign of the mechanism for collective assessment. However, while the Council and the European Parliament agree on the substance, they differ on the method. I advocate for a modus vivendi between the European institutions, the legal services of the Council and the European Parliament, reaching a satisfactory compromise that safeguards the rights of the European Parliament.

This is the meaning of this resolution that my political group supports. The alternative is the following: an institutional confrontation in which the Council comes into force by adopting alone the revision of the collective assessment mechanism. The European Parliament will be tempted to go to the Court of Justice to obtain the cancellation of the text. As a result, other legislative texts currently under discussion could suffer from this misunderstanding, including the Schengen Border Code.

Jean Monnet states, in his memoirs, that Europe is made in crises and that it is the sum of the solutions that are brought to these crises. My group will therefore support a solution prioritizing the reconciliation between the institutions and the preservation of the community method. I thank you.

Mr Dewael summarized the essence of the resolution very well. Nevertheless, our group considers it important to clarify a few things.

We believe that the creation of the single Schengen area is one of the most important achievements of European cooperation. The free movement of goods and persons is an important achievement in the intensive economic cooperation between the Member States. Changing these rules is, of course, a decision that must be handled very carefully. At the core of the resolution is therefore the assumption that decisions on the Schengen Agreement deserve at least a thorough democratic debate. The participation of the European Parliament, the only European institution with democratically elected members, is indispensable. In this sense, CD&V asks the Government to re-evaluate the decision of the Council of Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs and to consult the European Parliament.

But, there is one but. We must also not be blind to the unintended consequences of free movement. As a resident of the border region with France, I can witness like no other that we are confronted every day with the phenomenon of roaming groups of perpetrators that make our region unsafe from the north of France. Therefore, in this resolution, we also call for greater cooperation between the police and judicial services of the European Member States. A very good data exchange is essential. The possibility to develop joint actions should also be a tool in the fight against cross-border crime.

In the context of migration, several Member States have tightened border controls. We need to focus more on the control of the external borders. This also means more support for Member States at those external borders.

We will approve this resolution.

For our group, it is a matter of principle. Either accepting the European Union in its full value, including the free movement of citizens as one of the fundamental rights of the European Union, or allowing the European Union to use rules as a playball for populism, for nationalism and for electoral profiling urge. The incident before the summer, which colleague Dewael also referred to, must absolutely not be a precedent. It is very important to ensure that this can never be seen as a precedent.

It is not possible to do cherry picking with Europe. We must take Europe as it is, including the values and important fundamental rights that it entails, including, of course, the free movement of persons. Even more than now, the Belgian government needs to find support from small and medium-sized countries of the European Union to count the desires of large countries such as France and Italy. It is vital for the Union that the democratically elected parliament does not see its powers exhausted. Our country must continue to fully cooperate in this.

I was pleased to hear from the Minister that the position unanimously adopted at the European Council of Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs on 7 June to allow individual Member States to introduce temporary border controls without taking into account that this could undermine the fundamental freedoms of European citizens and as such also the spirit of the Schengen Agreement, and without the necessary democratic review by the European Parliament, will be re-evaluated. This is an important signal.

We must advocate in the relevant European institutions that the problem of controls at the internal Schengen borders remains subject as far as possible to the full democratic review by the European Parliament. This is essential. It is therefore good to give this signal from the Belgian Parliament with the greatest possible majority, and preferably unanimously, so that this incident can never be seen as a precedent. On the contrary, the democratic dignity of the European Parliament must be restored to its full value.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, dear colleagues, the Vlaams Belang will not support this resolution and we want to say that in all clarity, colleague Dewael. There are several reasons why we take this position, but the most important one is undoubtedly that the sovereignty, power and control over the own territory of the Member States of the European Union is repeatedly and increasingly undermined by this resolution, all in the interest of that new state, the European Union.

Of course, the authors of this resolution would like that Member States which wish to temporarily close their internal borders or to temporarily introduce tightened controls due to certain crisis situations – Mr Dewael has indeed correctly described it –, in short, that Member States which wish to temporarily suspend Schengen must submit this prior to the European Parliament’s approval. This gives the European Parliament a kind of co-decision right in this competence.

In other words, you want, for example, Polish parliamentarians to participate in a decision by the Belgian government, as long as there is no Flemish government in that area, for example, to temporarily re-guard the internal borders due to border crime. So you want those parliamentarians to decide on that.

One should not have much imagination to realize that Member States are still more than ever deprived of the right to invoke this exceptional rule – I emphasise that it is an exceptional rule – in order to be able to adequately respond to certain exceptional situations.

No, the Member States should no longer take this decision on their own in your draft resolution. It is clear why: the EU superstate, of course, does not tolerate internal borders. In this regard, the position of the liberals of Open Vld is quite consistent: one large single market must be created on the territory of the European continent, one free and single market for product distribution. This, of course, does not endure obstacles. It does not tolerate customs barriers. This does not tolerate barriers such as internal borders and others.

The fewer obstacles, the more free the market can go. A liberal sees only advantages in this. Therefore, of course, you want the Member States to be deprived of the power and competence to decide on exceptional states, to decide to suspend the Schengen Agreement temporarily, Mr. Dewael. You want to deprive those Member States of their decision-making powers and transfer them to the European Parliament. In your dreams, the European Union should become a kind of new state that replaces the old national states with their sovereignty. As for us, no.

In your explanation, you say that the introduction of temporary border controls constitutes a violation of the fundamental rights of citizens. However, you forget to say exactly what the infringement is. You also forget to say that the temporary introduction of those internal borders, the suspension of Schengen, is precisely done to safeguard the other fundamental rights of those same citizens, such as the right to security.

The only merit of your text is, in my opinion, that you don’t wave any clothes around it. With a certain amount of arrogance, you no longer find it even necessary to support your own statements with arguments. For example, you have it on page 7 of your explanation on means to increase internal security. You literally write: “The solution is, of course, more Europe.”

However, you forget to explain why this should be the case and why the temporary introduction of border controls could not contribute to greater and better internal security.

The words “European Union” and “of course” fall, in my opinion, a little too stressful and a little too easy. Apparently you do not realize the gap between the institutions of the European Union and the European man and woman on the street who must let it all pass.

I would like to give you the following warning, colleagues who drafted the resolution. Transferred powers need new powers to continue to work. From the one comes the other. The tasks go further.

Open internal borders force a centralized immigration policy, so that the Member States of the European Union will have less and less control over the rules we want to impose in order to limit the influx of again so many migrants into our territory.

Open internal borders – this resolution is once again a building block – make a national migration policy impossible, regardless of whether it is a Belgian or a Flemish migration policy. The impossibility of temporarily and autonomously terminating open internal borders in a sovereign manner will require, in the long run, a central security policy, a European Public Prosecutor’s Office and a European social security network. The one follows from the other. Are we prepared and able to do so in these times of financial strength and economic crisis?

Vlaams Belang does not believe that we should simply give up our sovereignty – of course in the hope and expectation that it may soon be a Flemish sovereignty. This resolution is entirely in line with the message of Guy Verhofstadt and others, who advocate a supranational Europe that, in the long run, will force the transfer of sovereignty and the formation of a new state, the United States of Europe. We have repeatedly rejected federalism in Belgium because it has never worked and because it can never work. If federalism is not possible in Belgium, then I really wonder how it would work at an even greater and more complex level than that of the European Union.

One of the applicants found it strange after the submission of this resolution that none of the Flemish national groups was present at the discussion. He thought that the reason for this could be that the Flemish national factions with this resolution were divided in the stomach or were tightly driven and would have no response. I must contradict this with these. I didn’t feel pushed in the narrow at all and I also have no trouble positioning myself in relation to this resolution. I will vote against and I think I have sufficiently explained what makes our group ⁇ difficult.

At the discussion at the committee meeting, I was simply absent because I wanted to check the wording of the resolution. In fact, on page 3 of the explanatory note it is stated that all political parties of the European Parliament considered that the Council should review its decision and that they would therefore be the requesting party to have a finger in the pocket from now on if the national states would temporarily suspend the Schengen Agreement. Well, Mr. Dewael, you probably take your devout wishes for truth. Our group in the European Parliament did not request that the Council review its decision. Even now we are not a requesting party.

This resolution will in any case be without us, not because we struggle to clarify our position, not because we struggle to explain our position or to position ourselves, quite the opposite. We will vote against with conviction.

Mr Dewael, this resolution has nothing to do with a lack of democratic control, which you are always talking about. We believe that democratic control of measures, in which the Schengen Agreement is suspended temporarily and due to very exceptional circumstances, is best carried out by the Member State which applies the exception itself in the democratically elected parliament of that Member State. There is nothing wrong with democratic control by the parliament of that Member State itself.

Are we less democratically elected than the European Parliament? I ask you. and no. We will therefore vote against this resolution with great conviction.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Minister, dear colleagues, this resolution, on which my group will vote favorably today, is doubly important since it concerns, on the one hand, one of the most important achievements of the European construction, namely the free movement of citizens, and, on the other hand, the decision-making mechanism of Europe because the debate also lies in whether or not to involve the European Parliament in a decision concerning one of Europe’s most important pillars.

In essence, it is clear that the reintroduction of internal border controls in exceptional circumstances can only be achieved in a Community process and must in no way be dissociated from a serious threat to public order. However, a clarification of the backup clause may be necessary. It is obvious, from our point of view, that, if the external borders are well guarded, a debate on strengthening the borders within Schengen is null and ineffective.

We must therefore be very vigilant to ensure that the European construction is not damaged and that the free movement of citizens remains one of the cornerstones of this construction. Finally, it is obvious that, on the decision-making level, the European Parliament must be able to play its full role. For the PS group, one cannot in any way refuse a democratic debate on such an important topic.

I take advantage of being in this tribune to issue some more general remarks and to remind that it is necessary to be very cautious before engaging in an amendment to the Schengen Code because the consequences could be unpredictable in terms of legal or illegal migration. For us, three reflections need to be carried out at European level. First, the need for a comprehensive and balanced view of the phenomenon of migration in a reflection on the causes of migration and the need for development assistance to the countries of the South. Second, the need to develop at European level common rules for legal immigration but also for respect for the rights of migrants, especially at the time of reception. Finally, the establishment of a common European asylum regime based on upward standard harmonisation. This process is still ongoing, and we look forward to it.

I will conclude by saying that it is not for us to go back on the achievements at the basis of the European construction. It is also not about challenging the already existing procedures within the Schengen Code in order to reinstate, temporarily and in a concerted manner, internal border controls.

It is clear that European ministers must work with a long-term vision and not in fear of mass immigration that usually does not take place. All Member States must benefit from a common and wise vision of immigration and asylum.

Mr. Speaker, I support this proposal for a resolution which corresponds to the view that Belgium has defended in the Justice and Home Affairs Council (JHA).

We first made some important amendments to the original texts; we have always defended the same position.

It is essential not only to obtain the approval of the European Parliament, but also that this policy is based on a co-decision logic. Even if we do not get it, we must at least find a solution in negotiation with Parliament to ⁇ it.

We believe that the evaluation of the policy should remain in the hands of the Commission.

I support the various proposals that have been made.

Regarding border control, I would point out that nothing has changed compared to the current arrangement. There will only be a return of certain checks under completely punctual or specific conditions, for example in the event of a threat to public order.