EU: UK borders: "transitional" agreement
01 November 1992
The widely reported 'compromise' reached between Home Secretary Kenneth Clarke and Martin Bangemann, the EC Commissioner for the Internal Market, over UK border controls is a purely 'transitional' agreement pending full compliance (see Statewatch vol 2 nos 4 and 5).
Mr Clarke and Mr Bangemann met in London in September to discuss the UK's long-standing opposition to the abolition of border controls scheduled for 1 January 1993. Mr Clarke said in a press release that despite holding "different views on the interpretation of Article 8A of the Treaty of Rome...we did agree to make it easier for EC nationals - including Britons - to pass through border controls" (Article 8A, which refers to the free movement of persons inside the EC was added to the Treaty of Rome through the Single European Act). Mr Clarke said: "I am determined to insist that the United Kingdom will operate border controls that are necessary to combat terrorism, drug smuggling, immigration and international crime. He also stressed that non- EC nationals would continue to have their passports checked in the normal way (non-EC nationals are people legally resident in an EC country but without the right to travel in the EC unless national law allows it). In Brussels Mr Bangemann told a press conference, on 2 September, that he was "encouraged by the meeting" and that they were looking for a solution which would "permit the abolition of regular controls on EC citizens travelling between member states". These views were duly reported with headlines like "EC's border controls set to end soon" (Guardian) and "Brussels retreats from battle over passport checks" (Independent).
On 23 September Mr Bangemann attended the meeting of the Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament when a different position emerged. He told the Committee that he had reached an "intermediate" solution whereby EC citizens entering the UK would pass through passport control waving their passports (a suggestion which provoked universal laughter from the MEPs). The "waving" of passports was being suggested as a way of the UK officials "recognising EC citizens so as not to be checked", he said. It was intended that EC citizens "identify themselves in order to avoid controls". MEPs said "waving" a passport was a check and was not the European Commission the "custodian of EC law?"
Mr Bangemann replied that: "We want any EC citizen to go from Hamburg to London without a passport". The Commission stuck by its legal opinion on the meaning of Article 8A issued in May and that it had always "said it will take the matter to court" if necessary. But, said MEPs, what does an "intermediate" solution mean? "The agreement with the UK clearly states that it is only a transitional agreement on the way to a full agreement", Mr Bangemann replied. On 19 October Mr Clarke told parliament that discussions with the Commission on this issue "are continuing".
The Commission is reluctant to pursue legal action against the UK because of the confusion over the Maastricht Treaty (which has placed all potentially controversial measures on hold).
The question of UK border controls has also been discussed by the European Parliament. Mr Andriessen, Vice-President of the Commission, said Article 8A meant that "Member states are required to ensure that any controls for any persons at the frontiers are abolished". In a debate on cross-border co- operation Mr Blaney (Independent, Ireland) spoke of the "extraordinary and unparalleled concentration of stockades being erected in preparation for 1993...nowhere in the world have been perpetrated upon any of our people in a cross-border region the stockades and the gun turrets that are 40 to 80 metres high and run right around our border between north and south".
Home Office press release 2.9.92; Guardian & Independent 3.9.92; Agence Europe 3.9.92; European Parliament debates 8 & 10.6.92; House of Commons written answer 19.10.92.