GOVERNMENT BACKS DOWN ON EARLY SCHENGEN MEMBERSHIP
As late as March the Brussels delegates of the Austrian and the Swiss government announced that their countries were negotiating an early accession to the Schengen agreement. The announcement was met with enthusiasm by Brussels (see: FECL No.5, p.4). A month later the Austrian Interior Minister, Franz Löschnak denied that his country had any such plans. The Austrian backdown produced consternation in Italy.
Asked in March, when their countries would sign the Schengen treaty, the Austrian negotiator in Brussels, Gregor Woschnagg boasted: "Maybe no later than autumn". And Reinhard Büscher, a collaborator of the European Commission's vice-president, Martin Bangemann, expressed relief: "If no agreement was reached, this would result in a European traffic infarctus from the first of January, 1993."
But already on 23 April Minister L"schnak harshly disavowed the government's own negociator, by declaring that only "informational contacts" had taken place and that there would be "no negotiations in a near future". Pressed by journalists, L"schnak refused to explain the government's motives for the sudden back down: "You may not ask me why." As for the government's Brussels negotiator Woschnagg, he was not authorized to make such statements, the Interior Minister said.
The Italian government is infuriated by the Austrian withdrawal which, according to rumors circulating in Vienna, is due to Austrian reservations with regard to "lax" Italian border control policies resulting in Italy having the highest quote of illegal immigration within the EC-countries.
The Italian Minister Daniele Machini said to the Viennese daily "Der Standard": "Vienna knows that our security authorities are working on a draft (...) It is also hard to understand that the Swiss cantons see no unsurmountable problems with regard to the reduction of controls whereas the Austrians do indeed".
Thomas Sperlich
Source: "Der Standard", Vienna, 22, 24 and 25/26.4.92