Dublin moves to allay fears over visa plan

Date: 25/07/1996

By Rory Watson

THE Irish government is moving quickly to try to defuse a growing row over the free movement of people within the Union.

The new EU presidency has reassured angry MEPs and Internal Market Commissioner Mario Monti that it has no intention of jettisoning draft laws designed to allow up to ten million third country nationals legally resident in one EU member state to travel elsewhere in the Union with the minimum of fuss.

Irish Tourism and Trade Minister Enda Kenny told the European Parliament's legal affairs committee this week that Dublin was firmly committed to securing agreement on the original package of proposals tabled by the Commission to allow people to move around the Union as freely as goods, services and capital do now.

Fears that the proposed legal guarantees were being watered down were prompted by the previous Italian EU presidency.

To avoid the legislative log-jam in which the proposal was trapped, Italy had suggested that member states use an intergovernmental agreement to tackle the issue.

Under this approach, non-EU citizens living in the Union would be able to use their legal residence permits as formal documents to travel to other Union countries for up to three months without having to apply for visas as at present.

The scheme would be of particular benefit to, for instance, North Africans in France and Belgium or to Indians and Pakistanis in the UK, who prefer to keep their own nationality but wish to travel around the Union.

The idea, further developed by the Irish, appealed to most EU governments when it was discussed in Dublin in early July.

But it was vociferously attacked last week by both the Internal Market Commissioner, who feared it would supplant his original proposal, and by MEPs, who complained they would not be consulted on its contents.

As a protest, the Parliament refused to give its required opinion on the Commission's free movement package.

Monti warned that under the scheme, governments would still have the right to check a third country citizen's documents and to send someone back to his country of residence without any possibility of appeal.

But Kenny insisted to MEPs that the plan to facilitate travel for third country nationals was purely an initial and pragmatic step to try to improve the situation of ten million people in the Union by sparing them the expense and bother of having to organise a visa to go to another member state.

The Irish intend to consult the Parliament on its contents and also believe the scheme would fulfil one of the declared objectives of EU governments - to make the Union more relevant to its citizens.

Kenny stressed that Dublin had no intention whatsoever of replacing the Commission proposal with an alternative intergovernmental one.

“When the Parliament has delivered its opinion and the Commission has reflected on that, every effort will be made to facilitate the further development of the proposals in whatever way the Commission wants to advance. I wish to make it clear that that would be the presidency's intention,” said the Irish minister.

Despite Kenny's efforts, Monti appears unconvinced by the scheme.

Sources close to the Commissioner maintained this week that the measures on the table were a step backward from those already being applied by signatories to the Schengen Convention.