Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-07-04-Speech-3-524-000"

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"Mr President, as part of strengthening the Schengen governance, the Commission also proposed that we would have regular discussions on the state of play – the health check – of Schengen. This would be an opportunity to discuss among Ministers the shortcomings and challenges of Schengen on a regular basis. It would take place twice a year based on a report issued by the Commission. The first debate took place last June, and I immediately sent the report to the European Parliament as well, and I am of course willing to discuss with you how we can involve the European Parliament even more in those discussions. In that report we identified 11 cases that we had been investigating for the last six months. Some of them could very well lead to infringement proceedings but, as I tried to explain on the two cases that you brought up in your oral questions, it is sometimes very difficult to get information and that is why we are now working very hard with Germany and the Czech Republic, including with the Czech bus companies, to see if we can get more information, so they have enough evidence to really bring the issue forward. Moreover, we are also issuing guidelines to the Member States, the first concerning travel documents, because of the background of the discussion between France and Italy on the travel documents of Tunisians, and we are also in regular contact with the Member States to see if there are other issues where we would need guidelines. So, Ms Weber, everything is not shiny and rosy in Schengen. There are problems, and it is because of this that we proposed a strengthening of the evaluation mechanism, so that we would have the possibility of identifying possible shortcomings very early on and working with the member countries, using all the tools that we have at our disposal to hopefully remedy the shortcomings at our borders. Mr President-in-Office, that is why we proposed to move from a peer-to-peer-based review to a Commission-led review. It is not because the Commission needs more powers it is because we need an independent European-based system so that we can make sure that we have a compulsory action plan by the relevant Member States and that we can also avoid possible domestic pressures – populism, etc. – which could lead to a reinstallation of internal borders that is not in line with the acquis. That would imply a change of the legal base, also involving the European Parliament. We maintain that view from the Commission side. Schengen is a European achievement, and that is why we need a European-based governance of Schengen. I hope that after the well-deserved summer break for everybody, we can sit together and see whether there is a way to find a good solution that all institutions can approve."@en1
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