Split over plan to abolish EU border controls

Date: 11/07/1996

By Rory Watson

THE European Parliament and the Commission are set to clash next week over the best way to ensure the complete abolition of passport checks at the Union's internal frontiers.

MEPs will be urged to reject the Commission's strategy of linking the free movement of people within the EU to the implementation of a series of conventions on policing the Union's external frontiers, handling asylum applications and issuing visas for third country nationals.

Internal Market Commissioner Mario Monti believes the flanking measures are necessary to win the support of member states and to reassure European citizens that the disappearance of internal border checks would not lead to an increase in crime.

“Member states need the insurance of this security framework and the guarantee that EU member countries will cooperate with each other. The two go hand-in-hand. It is a matter of common sense. Perhaps citizens should be asked whether they would prefer not to show their passports at internal frontiers if that meant there might be greater problems of security,” explained one official.

But Socialist MEPs will argue strongly in Strasbourg next week against any formal link between the various conventions which remain stalled and the right of people to move freely from one Union country to another.

“We want clear blue water between the two. Our view is that the way to get the problem solved is to pass legislation on the elimination of internal frontier controls and then people will tighten up their external borders. If we wait and try and do it the other way round, then it will never happen,” said British Socialist MEP Glyn Ford, the author of the Parliament's opinion on the draft legislation.

Given the political impasse between the UK and Spain over Gibraltar's status, critics of the Commission's approach argue there is little chance of the external frontiers convention being agreed within the next decade.

By breaking the link, Ford and his colleagues believe it would be feasible for member states to introduce the necessary legislation and abolish the controls by the end of the year - four years after the original deadline.

Similar opposition to any connection between the legislation and various conventions emerges in an accompanying report from Austrian Christian Democrat MEP Milan Linzer on the travel rights of third country nationals in the Union.

It is a view also shared by German Christian Democrat Klaus-Heiner Lehne on parallel draft legislation on the right of European citizens to live in EU countries other than their own and to provide services elsewhere in the Union.

But whatever line the Parliament takes next week, a final decision on the shape and timing of the legislation rests with member states and must be taken unanimously. With the UK determined to retain its right to maintain its border controls on the grounds that it must be allowed to protect its shores from criminals, terrorists, drug traffickers and illegal immigrants, the trio of legislative measures looks set to remain blocked.

But the results of a recent comprehensive British investigation into the benefits of internal frontier controls in tackling crime have cast serious doubts on London's arguments.

Chaired by Lord Templeman, the 11-man working party concluded that these may have a role to play in controlling illegal immigration, but were “at best a partial and imperfect method of prevention”.

It further noted that “claims that frontier controls are also useful in combating crime or preventing drug trafficking seem much more uncertain”.

When the findings were released, British Conservative MEP John Stevens said: “This report correctly identifies that internal frontiers have a largely 'totemic significance' in today's Europe. Real crime prevention and detection involves strong action by police authorities within states, rather than at their frontiers.”

Although the Commission has escaped the threat of legal action from the Parliament by tabling its proposals last year, EU governments could be next in line.