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Tag ‘Bulgaria’

No Schengen enlargement at today’s Council

Thursday, September 22nd, 2011

With the Swedish Minister Beatrice Ask and the Norwegian Minister Knut Storberget.

A long session of the Justice and Home Affairs Council has just finished. Unfortunately, the Polish Presidency did not manage to find a consensus among the Ministers regarding Bulgaria’s and Romania’s Schengen entry. Two Member States, Finland and the Netherlands, were against the enlargement of Schengen, and since the decision requires unanimity, no agreement could be made. We also had a long discussion on my proposals to strengthen Schengen. Even before our first discussion on this topic today, some harsh statements regarding the proposals had already been made by certain countries. The discussions were nevrtheless quite constructive. Some member countries do not support all of my my suggestions, while others are prepared to take everything on board. Some misunderstandings were sorted out and we all agreed on the necessity of strengthening the evaluation of Schengen and that any decision to introduce border controls for a longer-term must be taken jointly. It is very important that individual member states are not given the possibility to reintroduce border controls for internal reasons without involving the rest of the EU in such decisions. I do believe that we will find a good solution in the upcoming negotiations.

Unfortunately we did not encounter the same constructive spirit when we discussed the asylum package. Together with the Polish presidency, I have tried to find a way forward and break the deadlock on the Dublin Convention. It is a central piece of the whole asylum package. If we are to achieve our goal of establishing a common euroepan asylum system by next year, everyone must show a willingness to compromise. Some Member States did not seem ready to advance further with the discussions. I of course regret this but I am not giving up. We had invited the Norwegian Justice Minister Knut Storberget for a lunch discussion to discuss the horrible events which took place in Norway on 22 July and our work to prevent violent extremism. I presented the new Radicalization Awareness Network that was launched two weeks ago and we had a very constructive discussion about these issues. More information is available on my website. 

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Dublin and Schengen

Wednesday, September 7th, 2011

Today I had a working lunch with the Polish minister Jerzy Miller and the chair of the LIBE committee Juan Lopez Aguilar to discuss how to proceed with our work on the asylum package this autumn. One of the more difficult issues is the Dublin Regulation, where several Member States are blocking the current proposal. We discussed the different options for proceeding further and breaking the deadlock. The remaining legislative proposals, the asylum procedures and reception conditions directive, are still being negotiated and we are making small but steady progress.

During the afternoon I also met with the interior ministers from Romania and Bulgaria to discuss, amongst other issues, their Schengen entry. Both countries do meet the technical criteria for joining  the Schengen area, but some Member States still have some doubt. The Commission does not have a formal role in the decision on the lifting of internal borders which is taken by unanimity by the Member States. We discussed various possible solutions and how the Commission could best assist in this process. The Polish Presidency is hoping to present a solution to the Home Affairs Council in late September.

Overall, a lot of focus is on Schengen these days. Within the next weeks, I will present proposals to strengthen the Schengen system. Negotiations are still ongoing and last adjustments can still take place. Our aim is to enhance the free movement of goods and people, guaranteed by Schengen, through an early identification of problems and weaknesses and avoid that decisions are taken unilaterally. Schengen is a fantastic achievement, something we have built together, and decisions impacting on our common area of free movement should also be taken together.

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Bulgarian border point

Friday, February 11th, 2011

This morning I visited the border point between Bulgaria and Turkey at Kapitan Andreevo. The visit gave me a clear idea of the efforts put in place by the Bulgarian authorities to control the Bulgarian border, which is also an external border to the EU.

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