Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-09-20-Speech-4-019"
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"en.20010920.3.4-019"2
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"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first of all like to congratulate Mr Coelho warmly on his sterling report and thank him in turn, on behalf of my group, for the sound cooperation. What should really have been an annual debate on the implementation of the Schengen cooperation is today being afforded added topical value in the light of the Council of Ministers for Justice and for the Interior debating European measures to combat international terrorism. Nobody will deny that Schengen could play a role in this.
I shudder at the thought that appeals such as those during yesterday’s sitting could be made by the Right, to put a definitive stop to the free movement of people and to put Big Brother-like mechanisms into place. The Schengen discussion in my group has always sought to strike the necessary but difficult balance between the right to free movement of people, respect for the principles of the rule of law and human rights and the right to safety via police and judicial cooperation, and I should like to keep it that way.
However, despite the fact that Schengen has now been in existence for six years as a predecessor to the area of freedom, security and justice, we have to observe on the basis of Mr Coelho’s report that many aspects leave a great deal to be desired. I should like to list three.
Firstly, although Schengen exists, we have to observe that there is still no effective police cooperation and no effective exchange of intelligence which could yield major results in the fight against organised crime. In fact, the annual report states that there is a marked improvement, but the question is whether the right areas are being prioritised. To put it bluntly, is the Schengen intelligence system being put to actual use in the fight against international crime and terrorism, as defined in the UN Convention? Does it not mainly serve as an intelligence system to combat unwanted migration? Please allow me to put this question to you again in today’s climate.
Secondly, Schengen does, however, appear to be used in the framework of demonstrations on the occasion of European and international summits. No Democrat will object to the fact that trouble-makers who come to cause havoc are arrested. But the way in which peaceful protesters are being arrested via internal border controls and the exchange of intelligence on the basis of the Schengen Information System is really a bridge too far for anyone who is in favour of freedom of expression.
Thirdly, police cooperation and the exchange of intelligence require proper monitoring by the legal systems and parliaments. That is where Schengen really takes things too far. It even goes so far that the Council has decided not to publish any more reports, since Schengen now supposedly forms part of the European
as if Schengen ceases to exist as a result. In any event, my group would like to see Schengen in fact replaced by transparent, democratically controlled European rules but, in anticipation of this, we want the European Parliament, in tandem with national parliaments, to monitor Schengen."@en1
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