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What's This?
The European Commission hit today the reset button on Schengen and came up with a totally refurbished roadmap called: “Back to Schengen”, meant give a new life into the functioning of the Schengen Area. By the end of the year, all internal border controls will have to be scrapped, total freedom of circulation reestablished inside the Schengen area, and control at the external borders reinforced, especially with the help of Turkey, which will be rewarded financially.
Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos said: “With this roadmap, we are presenting the next steps that we must take together to restore a normal functioning Schengen Area as soon as possible, and this requires taking a number of important actions. First, all Member States need to apply the rules.”
A combative Avramopoulos said that “member states not very willing to accept refugees will have to do it. The relocation decision is mandatory. It has been taken by qualified majority and reluctant member states will have to comply.
Schengen was established over 30 years ago and now counts 26 members, 22 of which are EU members. In all practical respects, Schengen functions as a single country for international travel purposes, with a common visa policy.
But the system of passport-free travel has come under severe strain over the past half year due to a flood of migrants entering Europe, mainly from the Middle East and Africa. To stem the tide and to ensure they have an overview of who is entering their territory, many countries within Schengen have reintroduced border controls in recent months, leading to fears the whole system could collapse.
Were Schengen to be scrapped, writes the Commission, in its new paper released today, member states such as Poland, the Netherlands or Germany would face more than €500 million of additional costs for the road transport of traded goods;
Also, Spain or the Czech Republic would see their businesses paying more than €200 million in additional costs;
• Border controls would cost the 1.7 million cross-border workers, or the firms that employ them, between €2.5 and €4.5 billion in terms of time lost;
• At least 13 million tourist nights could be lost, with a total cost of €1.2 billion;
• At least €1.1 billion of administrative costs would have to be paid by governments due to the need for increased staff for border controls.
Last month already, a study by Germany’s Bertelsmann Foundation showed that the collapse of Europe’s Schengen passport-free travel zone could cost the European Union up to 1.4 trillion euros over the next decade.
That study estimated that under a worst case scenario, in which the reintroduction of controls at EU borders pushed import prices up three percent, the costs to the bloc’s largest economy Germany could be as much as 235 billion euros between 2016 and 2025, and those to France up to 244 billion.
At a minimum, with import prices rising one percent, the study showed that a breakdown of Schengen would cost the EU roughly 470 billion euros over the next decade.
In addition to being a devastating symbolic setback for Europe, a collapse of Schengen would increase the amount of time it takes for goods to be transported across European borders, raising costs for companies and consumers.
On Thursday, 3 March, Council president Donald Tusk told officials in Athens that Europe had little chance of resolving the crisis without full respect of controls on the external borders of Europe’s passport-free Schengen area — signalling pressure on Athens to do more to separate economic migrants from those fleeing war in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere.
The new roadmap states that the Commission experts in Greece should continue to cooperate with the Greek authorities and coordinate with the other actors involved;
• Also, there should be 100% identification and registration of all entries, including systematic security checks against databases;
• Greece should present an action plan to address the Schengen Evaluation Recommendations and a needs assessment to allow other Member States, EU Agencies and the Commission to provide timely support;
• If needed, Frontex should immediately prepare the further deployment of European Border Guard teams and launch additional calls for contributions, by 22 March;
• Other Member States should assume their responsibility and respond to these calls within 10 days with human resources and technical equipment.
The roadmap anticipates the following steps:
12 March 2016 at the latest: Greece provides its action plan to implement the recommendations made by the Council, together with a needs assessment.
16 March 2016: Commission Communication on the reform of the Dublin Regulation based on the objective of solidarity and fair burden-sharing between Member States.
16 March 2016: the Commission presents its First Report on Relocation and Resettlement.
22 March 2016 at the latest: Frontex launches additional calls for contributions to further deploy European Border Guard teams to support Greece.
1 April 2016 at the latest: Member States respond to the Frontex call by providing human resources and technical equipment.
12 April 2016 at the latest: the Commission presents its assessment of the adequacy of the action plan prepared by Greece.
16 April 2016: the Commission presents its Second Report on Relocation and Resettlement.
11-17 April 2016: a Schengen evaluation by Commission and Member State experts of air, land and sea borders of Greece will take place.
12 May 2016 at the latest: Greece reports on the implementation of the Council recommendations.
12 May 2016: if the serious deficiencies in external border control were to persist, the Commission will present a proposal under Article 26(2) of the Schengen Borders Code.
13 May 2016: if the serious deficiencies in external border control were to persist, the Council should adopt a recommendation under Article 26(2) of the Schengen Borders Code for a coherent Union approach to temporary internal border controls.
16 May 2016: the Commission presents its Third Report on Relocation and Resettlement.
June 2016 at the latest: the co-legislators reach political agreement on the European Border and Coast Guard and adopt the legal act.
June 2016: Commission presents its assessment of the possibility of resuming Dublin transfers to Greece.
August 2016 at the latest: the European Border and Coast Guard is operational.
September 2016 at the latest: the European Border and Coast Guard has delivered the first vulnerability tests so that any necessary preventive measures can be taken.
December 2016: if the overall situation allows, the target date for bringing to an end the exceptional safeguard measures taken.
The Commission also announced the first projects under the Facility for Refugees in Turkey, pledging €55 million to address the immediate needs of Syrian school-children in Turkey for access to formal education, and €40 million in humanitarian aid through the World Food Programme (WFP) working in close cooperation with the Turkish Red Crescent. It also awarded €3.5 million in emergency funding to Greece.
Also on Friday, Eurostat announced that a record number of over 1.2 million first time asylum seekers registered in 2015, a number more than double that of the previous year. Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis represented the top citizenships among refugees.
The post Schengen reloaded: Commission’s roadmap for a return to freedom of circulation appeared first on New Europe.