Schengen dealt further blow

Date: 15/02/1996

By Rory Watson

SCHENGEN countries will hold an emergency meeting in The Hague next week as Spain becomes the second member of the group to suspend key sections of the convention introduced less than a year ago.

Angered at the failure of a Belgian court to deport two suspected members of the Basque freedom party ETA, the Spanish government will inform its partners that it plans to stop implementing the accord's extradition and judicial cooperation measures with Belgium.

Spain's decision is another setback for the convention designed to abolish internal border controls and improve cooperation between the seven countries which have applied the agreement since last March.

A Spanish diplomat conceded that the bilateral argument with Belgium had “wider implications” for the health of the Schengen Convention, insisting that it was a bad breach of the confidence on which the agreement was based.

A senior Belgian source agreed: “At first sight, this does not appear too positive for the accord.”

Explaining Madrid's request for an extraordinary meeting of the Schengen executive committee next Wednesday (21 February), the Spanish official said: “What is now at stake is a question of confidence and trust between partners of the European Union. It is not about finding other ideas for fighting terrorism.”

The convention received a further set-back yesterday (14 February) when a mini-summit of French, German and Benelux leaders, scheduled for 7 March, on the fight against drugs was abruptly postponed. The meeting had been designed to iron out Franco-Dutch differences over drugs and ease the way for France to lift its border controls. But the participants now admit insufficient progress has been made to make the summit worthwhile.

Embarrassingly, the latest hiccups in the efforts of the seven members - Portugal, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium - to ensure that the convention runs smoothly come just weeks before its first birthday on 26 March.

Officials involved in Schengen played down the bilateral dispute stressing it would not affect relations as a whole between members.

But as the French government continues to hesitate over ending its border controls, the ruling Gaullist party, the Rassemblement pour la République (RPR) is being urged to dismiss the Schengen Agreement as “inappropriate”.

A preliminary report from the RPR's working group on Europe, now being considered by the party's leadership, hints that border controls should remain in place indefinitely.

It argues that, faced with the threat of mass migration from politically-unstable and poor nations to the south, “it must be stated that the Schengen accord ... appears today largely inappropriate”.