EU-Schengen: Greenpeace campaigner refused entry to Schengen
01 September 1998
Stephanie Mills from New Zealand, a Greenpeace activist, was refused entry into the Schengen "area" on 25 June because France had entered her name in the Schengen Information System as an "undesirable alien".
Stephanie Mills had visited Greenpeace's office in London and was on her way to the group's Amsterdam headquarters. When she arrived at Schiphol airport in the Netherlands officials checked her passport to find that she was "tagged", as an undesired alien in the Schengen Information System (SIS). France had entered the "alert" years ago when she was active in Greenpeace's anti-nuclear test Mururoa campaign in 1995. Dutch officials showed some embarrassment, but had no choice but to refuse her entry onto Schengen territory.
Greenpeace immediately put a team of lawyers to work to try and persuade the French Ministry of the Interior to take Stephanie Mills off the Schengen list. The procedure has been going on for several months and Greenpeace does not want to comment on the affair "to avoid influencing the case in a negative way".
The SIS computer holds at least 14 million entries according to the last available figures from April 1998 (see Statewatch, vol 8 nos 3/4). When a Schengen member state enters an "alert" a file is "tagged" and a person can be refused entry on the grounds that they constitute a threat to its public order or national security. All Schengen states are then obliged to cooperate and only the registering state can remove the file. Other Schengen member states can make an exception and issue an entry permit limiting access to its own territory, but this highly unusual step. Greenpeace has had similar experiences in the past where its workers were refused entry to Schengen on a French request, but the organization successfully had the ban lifted in some cases. The Dutch specialist on immigration law Prof Kees Groenendijk, of Nijmegen University, commented on the Mills case that it is obvious that people can be refused access to the Schengen area on political grounds. The European Court of Justice has no powers over public order matters which remain the exclusive prerogative of EU national governments.
Vrij Nederland, 29.8.98.