Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-01-13-Speech-1-126"
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"en.20030113.7.1-126"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like first of all to thank Mr Hubert Pirker for his report, which has focused not only on the Commission communication on the management of the EU’s external borders, but also on the action plan adopted by the Council. We might also say that the two documents, the Commission proposal and the Council action plan, contain a great deal of common ground. I believe that, in fact, the four fundamental objectives that were set for us at Laeken form part of this action plan: increasing mutual trust between the Member States with regard to controlling our external border, which is a common border, which means that poor control over the border in one State has inevitable knock-on effects on the security of all the other Member States of the European Union, the effectiveness of the fight against illegal immigration, the particular priority that must be given to controlling the external borders to prevent the entry of terrorist groups or agents and, finally, to safeguard the high level of internal security in the European Union, without which we cannot preserve freedom of movement and the abolition of controls at our external borders.
As Mr Pirker emphasised, the objectives of this action plan are clear; and I believe that, rather than talking about objectives, we must define targets and work out what actually needs to be done. Firstly, in the legislative field. We have the Schengen acquis, that, as Mr Pirker quite rightly underlined, is implemented very differently in the various States. We need to harmonise the way in which the Schengen acquis is implemented and we are doing so in two ways: firstly by revising the Common Schengen Manual, and the Commission will, in the first six months of this year, be submitting a proposal for this revision. Secondly, however, by also establishing a code of good practice for establishing common standards.
The second objective is the training of border guards. I believe that, at this very moment, a meeting is taking place in Vienna, in which the Commission is participating, to define a proposal for a common curriculum for the training of border guards. This project is being led by Austria and by Sweden.
The third objective is to use modern information technologies to improve the control of our external borders. In this field, the Commission plans at the Salonika European Council, this coming July, to present a viability study into the launching of the on-line visa system at European level. We will similarly be presenting the first proposals on the control of the European Union’s external sea borders.
The fourth objective is to define a common risk analysis model for controlling our external borders. In this field we already have a model, defined on the basis of a proposal presented by the Government of Finland, and a first meeting was held under the Danish Presidency of the so-called ‘SCIFA+’, which is the body that coordinates the border control services of all the Member States of the European Union. As a result of the functioning of this new body at European level it has been possible to develop, as early as in 2002, two practical operations. The first was the operation ‘Ulysses’, which was coordinated by Spain and involved joint teams from various Member States on controlling the Mediterranean; and the second was the operation of a joint team led by Germany to control its land borders. These two operations were, in 2002, funded by the ARGO Programme and new actions for operational cooperation have already been presented for 2003.
Finally, the Seville European Council supported the principle of sharing responsibilities for controlling the external borders. This is a sharing of responsibilities in financial terms, in terms of sharing equipment and also with a view to creating, eventually, a common border guard force. The Commission presented an initial evaluation of the financial situation. We must acknowledge that the data that the Member States provided us with on the real expenditure of each of them on controlling the external borders were very different and were hard to compare. The Commission therefore requested further clarification and intends, during the Greek Presidency, to propose criteria for sharing financial responsibility for controlling the external border of the European Union. I hope that, with the motion for a resolution tabled by Mr Pirker, which will be voted on here tomorrow, Parliament will be able to give a decisive boost to this ambitious, demanding and crucial programme of action to control the external border of the European Union in order to enhance the domestic security of all Member States."@en1
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