2 December: Justice and Home Affairs Council

Date: 09/12/1999

MINISTERS provisionally agreed that Greece would become a full member of the Schengen free-movement zone from 1 January 2000. From that date, frontier controls at Greek ports will be lifted for journeys to and from the other EU member states which apply the Schengen agreement in full (Germany, France, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain and Portugal). Border controls at Greek airports will be lifted on 26 March, when airlines switch from their winter to summer timetables. The decision still needs to be approved by the Dutch parliament, but officials said after the meeting that this should not pose any serious problems.

THE UK's bid to become a partial member of Schengen was less successful, however. Thirteen member states supported London's application to opt in to all aspects of the Schengen deal which do not concern border control and immigration, but the Spanish delegation opposed the move. Madrid said it objected in principle to the idea of partial participation in the Schengen accord and added that it was also opposed to the 'territorial scope' of the planned agreement - a reference to the fact that under the proposed deal, the disputed UK territory of Gibraltar would be covered by all of the aspects of Schengen which London signed up to.

JUSTICE and home affairs Commissioner António Vitorino briefed ministers on his plans to produce a 'scoreboard' of EU governments' efforts to put in place the 'area of freedom, security and justice' set out in the Amsterdam Treaty. Vitorino, who was given the task of drawing up the scoreboard by EU leaders at their special justice and home affairs summit in October, said he would bring forward a formal proposal next spring outlining how he believed the new initiative should work. He stressed, however, that all the deadlines for introducing legislation which would be used to assess member states' performance were already in place and had been agreed at the December 1998 EU summit in Vienna.

EFFORTS to finalise discussions on a convention which would make cross-border criminal investigations within the EU easier remained blocked over the sensitive question of telephone tapping. Some progress was made, particularly on the issue of exempting national intelligence services from any obligation to inform other EU governments of their activities. But ministers are still divided over the question of what information they should give each other when they bug the latest generation of satellite-based mobile telephones.

MINISTERS also remained divided over the sensitive issue of how to protect the single currency against counterfeiting when euro notes and coins enter into circulation in 2002. While everyone agreed on the need to introduce tough penalties for those found guilty of trying to forge the new notes and coins, they were unable to reach a consensus on the precise wording of a formal deal.