Tag: Schengen

Greece cannot control its borders without the cooperation of its Turkish neighbour, Greek Minister for Citizen Protection Michalis Chrisochoidis told the European Parliament on Wednesday (25 April), denouncing France's lack of solidarity on the matter and Turkey's attempts at "blackmail".

Tapping the €430-billion Norway pension fund, made up of revenues from the country's gas and oil exports, to boost EU bailout mechanisms is a "non issue" because the fund has a different purpose, Norway's Ambassador to the EU Atle Leikvoll told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.

To avoid being expelled from the EU border-free Schengen area, Greece is accelerating construction of prison-style asylum centres, putting it at odds with court rulings in other countries that asylum seekers shouldn't be treated as prisoners. Greek authorities defend the plans, citing similar facilities in France and Spain.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the champion of European integration during his country's EU presidency in 2008, has appeared to turn a cold shoulder to Europe in campaign stump speeches laced with nationalism as he heads towards a first-round election in April.

Serbia clinched its coveted status of EU candidate country at a summit in Brussels last night (1 March), after Bucharest dropped its opposition following an agreement on a roadmap that should see Romania enter theSchengen passport-free area in September.

Romanian Justice Minister Cătălin Predoiu said his country had made unprecedented efforts to reform its law enforcement system, suggesting that Bucharest wanted to see the EU monitoring mechanism put in place five years ago removed by the summer.

Poland's European affairs minister said the "biggest disappointment" of his country's EU presidency, largely seen as successful under the difficult circumstances of the eurozone crisis, was the failure to take on board Bulgaria and Romania in the EU border-free Schengen area.

Taking lessons from Denmark’s temporary re-imposition of border checks, the EU would do well to intensify its efforts to streamline border practices towards a more coherent EU-wide approach, argues Peter Hobbing of the Centre for European Policy Studies.

The European Parliament adopted today (25 October) a resolution urging the 10 member countries that have not opened their labour markets to Bulgarians and Romanians to do so by the end of the year.

The European Commission today (16 September) published a strongly Community-driven blueprint for a revamp of the EU's Schengen border-free area, ignoring calls from France, Germany and Spain for national sovereignty to remain the basis of the project.

German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich hit back forcefully against a draft plan to give the European Commission more say on when member states can reintroduce border controls in the passport-free Schengen travel area.

Berlin yesterday (10 August) criticised Danish plans to build new installations on its border with Germany, saying its northern neighbour should wait for European Union clearance before starting any construction.

The European Commission yesterday (25 July) ruled that Italy and France did not breach EU rules by adopting their own measures to deal with an influx of migrants from Tunisia earlier this year, but failed to respect the "spirit" of the Schengen agreement.

The two largest opposition parties in Bulgaria filed a no-confidence motion against the minority centre-right government yesterday (13 July), slamming the prime minister for failing to join the EU's Schengen passport-free zone and for what they described as a law enforcement fiasco. Dnevnik, EurActiv's partner in Bulgaria, reports.

The European Parliament today (7 July) overwhelmingly rejected a push by EU countries led by France and backed by the European Commission to dilute the bloc's existing border-free area by allowing individual members to re-introduce checks on an "exceptional" basis.

The Polish EU Presidency is taking on the "exciting challenge" of countering a new wave of Euroscepticism and convincing other members of the Union that the European project is a "great thing", the country's prime minister, Donald Tusk, told a select group of Brussels journalists in Warsaw on 1 July.

EU heads of state and government adopted a political decision to reform the Schengen passport-free travel area at the conclusion of a two-day summit in Brussels today (24 June). The new rules were compared by Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to the tough scrutiny imposed on Romania and Bulgaria after their EU accession.

In a letter sent to EU heads of state and government, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso has laid down his services' red lines regarding to the EU's priorities ahead of a summit on 23-24 June.

The European Commission yesterday (6 June) unveiled its first ever proposal to address corruption at EU level. Meanwhile, pressure is growing on Bulgaria and Romania to tackle corruption and mafia crime as preconditions of their accession to the EU's Schengen borderless area.

Interior ministers from the 27-country bloc have agreed to change the rules of the Schengen passport-free area, seeking to clarify conditions under which national governments can reinstate border controls following a high-level spat between France and Italy.

Seeking to strike a balance between France and Italy's calls for border controls within the Schengen border-free area to be reintroduced on demand and federalist views, according to which such a move would undermine the EU, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso admitted that such checks could be reinstated as "a last resort".

The European Commission published yesterday (4 May) a proposal to better manage migration, following the diplomatic tensions between Paris and Rome over an arrival of some 25,000 illegal immigrants from Tunisia. The Commission paper was welcomed by the European People's Party and the Greens, and strongly criticised by the Socialists and Liberals.

The EU executive is considering allowing member states to reinstate some border controls, its president said on Sunday (1 May), responding to demands for more national power to stem immigration.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi yesterday (26 April) asked Brussels to make changes to the treaty establishing the Schengen border-free area. The proposed changes strengthen the hand of member countries and undermine the role of the European Commission.