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EU: Schengen delayed

01 November 1992

The Schengen Agreement is not likely to come into effect until well into 1993 and then only in a limited way. After the meeting of Schengen states in early November in Madrid the Spanish State Secretary for European Affairs, Mr Carlos Westendorf, said a number of countries still had to ratify the Agreement. One of the reasons for the delay was differences over asylum policies with Germany likely to change its asylum laws, and Portugal which wants to "legalise" 70,000 "illegal" immigrants before fully implementing the Agreement. At the meeting Greece was formally accepted in the Schengen Group, joining Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. This leaves the UK, Ireland and Denmark as the only members of the EC outside the Schengen Agreement.

The meeting also heard that the Schengen Information System (SIS) was not going to be operational until the summer of 1993. It was agreed to give the contract for producing the new Schengen visas to a Swiss company - the new visa will have a hologram and be tamper-proof. People visiting the Schengen states from 120 countries will be issued with these visas.

Meanwhile, Belgium's Conseil d'Etat has issued a reservation on the Schengen Supplementary Agreement. Like the Dutch parliament, it is unhappy about the powers being given to the Executive Committee of Schengen and the lack of judicial control over it. This problem will be encountered again, since none of the European treaties has been brought within the competence of the European Commission or the European Court of Justice. There is no international legal forum for the settlement of disputes, either between signatory states or for aggrieved individuals. This contrasts with the free movement rights for EC nationals incorporated in the Treaty of Rome and subsequent EC directives, which can be litigated both in national courts and in the European Court of Justice.