Schengen members agree to fight terrorism together

Date: 22/02/1996

THE seven EU members of the Schengen Agreement have narrowly averted a row over the extradition of suspected terrorists by agreeing to close loopholes in the border-free zone.

The compromise reached by the Schengen executive committee in The Hague yesterday (21 February) effectively signalled a truce between Belgium and Spain. Madrid had threatened earlier to suspend key elements of the convention dealing with judicial cooperation and extradition in protest at Belgium's failure to deport two Basque separatists.

That threat was dropped when Schengen members unanimously agreed on the need to strengthen their cooperation in the fight against terrorism and called on the EU to speed up work on a draft convention to improve extradition measures between member states.

A similar message came from the European Parliament last week when it overwhelmingly backed a resolution calling on the Council of Ministers “to draft a convention on extradition which would represent real progress over existing texts and go beyond obsolete notions in the EU, such as the notion of political offence”.

MEPs added that they firmly believed it was in the interest of members to have “a common interpretation of conventions and texts, which should result in common fundamental principles on matters of extradition”.

Chairing the Schengen meeting, Dutch State Secretary at the Foreign Ministry Michiel Patijn said: “The most important thing is that we have agreed to intensify cooperation between the Schengen partners on practical cooperation on extradition.”

The search for ways to tighten up the convention's extradition procedures will begin immediately as the signatories try to reach an agreed interpretation of the relevant provisions. Belgium and Spain will also hold talks to determine how they can resolve their own bilateral problems.

Spain's State Secretary for Justice Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said afterwards she was satisfied with the outcome of the meeting and stated that Schengen remained the most “advanced forum to lead the fight against organised crime and terrorism”.

The latest agreement was hammered out in private talks between Spanish, Belgian and Dutch participants before a lunchtime meeting with their German, French, Portuguese and Luxembourg partners.

It will boost morale among the Schengen seven, which was dented last week when France insisted on the postponement of a mini-summit involving five of of its members, claiming that not enough was being done to tackle the rise in drug trafficking.