EU: UK to join Schengen (feature)
01 March 1999
The UK announced, at the meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Council in Brussels on 12 March, that it intended to apply to "opt-in" to parts of the Schengen acquis (in the Treaty of European Union, TEU) and parts of the Free Movement Chapter (Title IV, Visas, Asylum, Immigration in the Treaty establishing the European Communities, TEC). It is expected that Ireland will follow the UK.
Under the Schengen Protocol in the Amsterdam Treaty, which incorporates the Schengen acquis, the UK and Ireland:
"which are not bound by the Schengen acquis, may at ant time request to take part in some or all of the provisions of this acquis. The Council shall decide on the request with the unanimity of its members referred to in Article 1.." (Article 4 of the Schengen Protocol)
The "members" in Article 1 are the 13 EU states who were members of the Schengen Agreement (from 1 May 1999 with the Amsterdam Treaty coming into effect Schengen is incorporated). It is thus open to the UK and Ireland to apply to join all or parts of the Schengen acquis. However, it should be noted that acceptance of their applications is dependent on a unanimous decision by the 13 "Schengen" states which could pose a problem if Spain pursues its claims over Gibraltar or if other states doe not appreciate the "pick-and-mix" application.
The breakdown of which parts of the Schengen acquis the UK will be applying to join is as follows:
External frontiers: NO
Internal borders: NO
Visas: NO
Schengen Information System (SIS): YES
Police Cooperation: YES
Drugs: YES
Judicial cooperation: YES
All but one of the Schengen provisions on asylum have been provisionally declared obsolete, most have been supplanted by the EU-wide Dublin Convention. The UK says the visa provisions are to be linked to the abolition of internals controls (which runs against the maintenance of its border control regime) and the strengthening of external frontiers to enforce visa policies.
When the Home Secretary announced that the UK was to apply to join the Schengen acquis, especially the SIS (and the complimentary SIRENE network), no reference was made as to whether the UK parliament would be asked to agree. During the brief debates on the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty it was made clear that the Schengen Protocol incorporating the Schengen acquis into the TEC and TEU did not apply to the UK.
The areas of Title IV of the TEC that the UK wants to join are those covering asylum and civil judicial cooperation, the UK government does not want to join the provisions on external frontier controls or those on visa policy. The UK Home Secretary Jack Straw said the UK will "maintain its frontier controls" which is specifically covered in a Protocol in the Amsterdam Treaty. The UK's position is that the: "maintenance of strong frontier controls.. is the most effective way for the UK, with its island geography, to control immigration." The UK and Ireland are not bound by the measures in Title IV except where they choose to be so.
SIS to stay in the "third pillar"
In the last week of April, the last week of the Maastricht Treaty, two important meetings took place - the General Affairs Council on 26-27 April and the last meeting of the Schengen Executive Committee on 27-28 April.
The central issue was the incorporation of the Schengen acquis into either the TEU or TEC. There were two sets of reports, the first defining what was actually in the acquis, the second allocating each provision to specific Articles in the two Treaties. The sticking point proved to be the allocation of the Articles 92 to 119 of the Schengen Agreement covering the Schengen Information System and the national SI