INTERNATIONAL DATABASE FOR FINGERPRINTS - SWITZERLAND'S "WEDDING PRESENT" TO TREVI
The Minister for Justice and Police, Arnold Koller, led a Swiss delegation participating at the regular TREVI-meeting in Lisbon, in June. As a non-EC state, Switzerland is not member of the TREVI group (an informal working group of ministers dealing with terrorism, radicalism, extremism and violence which is to play a leading role in the setting up of Europol) but is part of the states regularly invited as "observers" (together with the other EFTA-states, the USA, Canada and Morocco).
According to a press release of the Justice and Police department, the TREVI-meeting was to discuss migration problems, international terrorism and the combat against crime. At the same time the procedings for the conclusion of a parallel convention to the EC-Dublin Convention (country of first asylum) shall be decided upon. The parallel convention will allow non-EC countries to take over the provisions of the Dublin Convention.
Furthermore Switzerland presented a feasibility study on the setting up of a European information system on fingerprints of asylum seekers. According to the ministry of justice and police such a database would be "an efficient and economic means" for preventing asylum seekers from presenting asylum requests repeatedly and simultaneously in several countries. Switzerland therefore proposes the setting up of such a database in conjunction with the preparations for the "parallel" convention.
Source: Eidgenössisches Justiz- und Polizeidepartement, Informations- und Pressedienst, press release, 10.6.1992