EU: SIS=EIS - Who pays what? (feature)
01 July 1996
When the Schengen Agreement was finally put into operation on 25 March 1995 the Schengen Information System (SIS) based in Strasbourg was up and running. The start of the Schengen Agreement had been planned for the beginning of 1993, when the removal of the internal borders of the EU should have formally come into being. But the start was delayed largely because of delays in getting the SIS to work and then to link into national computer systems (N.SIS). In the end the computer interface had to be changed adding to the cost of setting the SIS up. The total cost of the SIS computer system was FF46 million (over £6 million). The annual running cost the SIS in 1995 was, in 1995, officially between FF6-7 million (around £873,000).
The annual running costs are shared among the nine Schengen member states - Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, Greece and Italy. But the last two states, Greece and Italy, although their governments have signed the Schengen Agreement it has not yet been ratified by their national parliaments. They do not participate in the SIS and have no computer links or access to the information held on the SIS. However, it appears that they are still having to pay their share of the running costs.
In 1995 the overall cost was paid for as follows:
Germany 39.2%
France 23.83%
Italy 14.53%
Spain 8.44%
Netherlands 6.09%
Belgium 3.8%
Portugal 1.90%
Greece 1.87%
Luxembourg 0.34%
Italy is therefore the third largest contributor to the Central SIS (C.SIS) even though it cannot use the system. It is unlikely Italy or Greece will ratify the Schengen Agreement this year and it may be well into 1997 before they do.
The figures for 1995 will, of course, be adjusted this year. Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Austria have now signed the Agreement, and have observer status on the Schengen Executive Committee. These four countries will now be paying their "share" of running the SIS even though their parliaments have not ratified the Agreement and are not likely to do so for some time.
Overall in 1996 there will be six countries whose governments have signed the Schengen Agreement and who have not ratified it who will be paying the costs of the SIS without being able to use it.
SIS=EIS
The SIS, like the whole Schengen Agreement, is intended to be replaced by EU-wide policies when they meet the objectives in the Agreement itself. When, and if, the Council of Justice and home Affairs Ministers is able to agree on the External Frontiers Convention - which has been held up since 1991 by a dispute over the status of Gibraltar between the UK and Spain - under Article 13 the "European Information System" (EIS) will be set up. Due to all the problems faced by the original Schengen member states in setting up the SIS, and in getting ratification through their parliaments, they insisted that the draft Convention on the European Information System should match the provisions for the SIS word for word. The non-Schengen states have not been allowed to change a dot or comma affecting the SIS provisions in the Schengen Agreement in the discussion on the EIS Convention.
The SIS will simply be renamed the EIS when the two Conventions - External Frontiers and EIS - are signed by the EU governments and then ratified by their national parliaments. Governments like the UK, Ireland and Denmark and now Sweden, Finland and Austria, not only have had no say in the drawing up of the SIS provisions in the Schengen Agreement they had none in the creation of the SIS computer system itself. The UK government, in an explanatory memorandum, was coy about the implications: "The draft EIS Convention is closely based on the relevant articles of the Schengen Convention... "
The SIS/EIS computer system in Strasbourg will complement the Europol system based in the Hague. While the Europol system is primarily concern