Fears over drive to extend Schengen

Date: 13/06/1996

By Rory Watson

NORWAY, which has twice voted against joining the Union, could soon directly affect EU moves to promote the free movement of people from one member state to another.

This strange quirk of fate will be considered in Strasbourg next week when the European Parliament examines the impact of extending the border-free Schengen Convention to the five countries in the Nordic Union at its plenary session.

“There is a danger this could create a Trojan horse. We want to draw attention to this issue and to ensure a non-Union member cannot block something of interest to EU countries,” explains Dutch Socialist MEP Alman Metten.

Denmark is leading the drive among the five to join the convention and its EU partners, Sweden and Finland, have indicated they intend to follow Copenhagen's lead.

With Schengen membership limited to Union member states, the search began last year to ensure that no new border controls would be erected between the three Nordic EU countries on the one hand and Norway and Iceland on the other.

“The Nordic passport union has existed since 1954 and means that citizens from all these countries can go through border controls without showing their passports. The idea of the debate is to ensure that the Union preserves the Nordic passport union even if Denmark, Finland and Sweden join Schengen,” says Finnish Liberal MEP Olli Rehn, one of the main instigators of the debate.

Schengen negotiators believe that they are close to finding a formula which would provide Norway and Iceland with associate membership of the group, allowing them to participate in - but not vote on - the convention's policy initiatives.

“We seem to have solved most of the practical hurdles, but what I want to underline is that Nordic citizens will never accept the death of the passport union because of the Schengen Convention,” warns Rehn.

His Swedish Christian Democrat colleague Gunilla Carlsson is equally adamant that MEPs should send the clear message next week that they back the expansion of Schengen and approve of the formula being devised to ensure the passport-free Nordic Union remains intact.

“I accept there may be some technical difficulties, but I believe it is important that the Parliament shows it is in favour of this and wants the passport union to continue,” she says.

But Metten, who discussed the proposed arrangements with Nordic parliamentarians last week, believes deeper political dangers lie behind the technical problems involved.

He accepts that Norway and Iceland will have to take on the Schengen acquis when they sign up to associate membership, but raises the question of what would happen if either country objected to a policy initiative in the future.

He argues that the text of the draft agreement now on the table would ensure that both countries would be consulted if they had problems with a particular course of action, but stipulates that they would have to leave the cooperation agreement if they were unable to accept the final decision taken by Schengen members.

“If that happened, then the whole problem of border controls being reintroduced between Sweden and Norway would come up again. But it is not just their problem. By threatening not to agree and then to leave Schengen, they could put pressure on other countries to veto various initiatives. It would be a Trojan Horse in the Union. To give a non-member the possibility of a veto is a little crazy,” he warns.

Like Metten, his Belgian Socialist colleague Anne Van Lancker, an expert on the Schengen Convention, raises the possibility of problems ahead if, as most MEPs would like, Schengen is brought within the full Union ambit and made subject to EU rules.

“Would Norway, which twice refused to join the Union, agree to accept the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice? What would they do when part of the Schengen acquis is within the Union and they have no representatives in either the Court or the European Parliament?” she asks.

But British Socialist MEP Glyn Ford, whose own report on the Commission's proposals for completing the single market by ensuring the free movement of people within the Union is due to be examined by Euro MPs in July, is perplexed by the concern over the Nordic Union.

“We really should not talk of free movement in the Nordic Union until we have got free movement in the Union,” he maintains.