GERMAN PROGRESS REPORT ON SCHENGEN IMPLEMENTATION
In September the German government presented a report to Parliament on the first six months of operation of the Schengen Implementing Agreement (SIA). By the end of September 1995, the Schengen states' common police data register, SIS, contained a total of 3.4 million data records on persons and objects. Control activities at external borders have increased considerably, the report shows, and while internal border checks at official crossing-points have been abolished by all Schengen states except France, several member states have upgraded surveillance activities in areas close to internal borders. The report misses no opportunity to boast about the German leadership of the Schengen Group.
The situation at internal borders
The report stresses that, as a rule, German border police (BGS) are no longer carrying out any checks on persons except for checks justified by a specific suspicion or incident. This is not the case for Germany's Schengen neighbours, France and the Netherlands, the report points out. The Dutch have set up a mobile border police force operating in a vast zone behind its internal borders. The mobile units are authorised to stop and check persons at random. In French border districts, some 16,000 border police, Police, Gendarmerie and Customs officers are allowed to check persons without giving a reason. Moreover, France is still refusing to abolish checks at internal borders. (France recently announced that it was prolonging this measure for a further six months at least, due to the recent wave of terrorist attacks and to what the German report calls "alleged problems" in implementing the SIA). In doing so, the French government is referring to Article 2.2 of the SIA, which allows member states to reintroduce internal border checks for a limited period, where "public policy or national security so require".
The report suggests that the extensive internal border control activities of its neighbours are putting Germany's alleged willingness to reduce controls under strain. Since the entry into force of the SIA in late March 1995, the number of BGS officers posted at internal border crossing-points has been massively reduced to fewer than 200, it says. Their task is limited essentially to handling the readmission of foreigners according to the Schengen rules defining the member state of first entry. Between April and July 1995, Germany took back 7,556 individuals, while it returned only 728 to other Schengen states. The report blames this "disparity" on the intense French and Dutch control activities behind their internal borders. However, some lines below, it says: "Along the internal frontier an extra 500 BGS officers are keeping a watching eye". The main objective of the force is "to counter the continuing migratory pressure from Yugoslavia via Italy by the use of all possibilities still permitted under the Schengen Implementing Agreement". Their tasks consist of "surveillance and reconnaissance in "areas near the borders" and in carrying out checks in "concrete cases of suspicion". These "discreet" BGS activities resulted in the seizure of 496 illegal aliens and 29 "presumed smugglers of immigrants" in areas near the border, between April and August 1995. The BGS further arrested 50 persons in border areas based on criminal search requests in the SIS.
The situation at the external borders
The report notes that all Schengen member states have reinforced their control and surveillance forces. Increased control activities at German external borders have not caused any major problems, it says, thanks to the BGS which "on the one hand is putting into practice the Schengen regulations but is on the other is proceeding with unbureaucratic flexibility". But queues of up to four hours are reported from the German-Polish borders.
The average number of entries denied at German external borders (10,000 per month!) has not increased since the entry into force of the SIA. In the first six months of the SIA in operation, only 56 persons were denied entry due to registration in the SIS by other Schengen states.
There has been a steady rise in illegal immigration since January 1995. In the month of August 1995, 3,135 persons were stopped for attempting to enter Germany illegally.
26,828 searched persons were arrested at German external borders in the second quarter of 1995. Most of the arrests took place at the Eastern borders with Poland and the Czech Republic. According to the report, the increase in arrests at the external borders is not due to the SIS (only 181 hits) but rather to an increase in personnel responsible for border checks as required by the Schengen Agreement.
Schengen Information System
The information stored in the N-SIS of the seven countries in which the SIA entered into force on 27 March 1995 is now identical [N-SIS: the national components of the SIS, linked by the C-SIS, the central support of the system in Strasbourg].
A total of 30,000 terminals in the seven Schengen states have access to the SIS, of which 9,000 are in Germany.
According to the report, the higher hit rate of the SIS as compared with national criminal search databases confirms its practical effectiveness.
At the end of September 1995, the number of data records stored in the SIS had reached 3.4 million records on persons, objects and orders of denial of entry. The overwhelming majority of records were entered by Germany and France (Germany: 2.3 million, France: 1 million).
Of the 2.3 million German records, 701,534 concerned individuals, 290,000 motor vehicles, and 956,778 ID documents. The large majority of persons, 603,732, were "undesirable aliens (mostly rejected asylum-seekers)" registered for refusal of entry (under Article 96 SIA). The number of individuals registered on other grounds
- 897 (arrest for the purpose of extradition, Article 95 SIA);
- 760 (missing persons, under Article 97);
- 221 (individuals subject to "covert surveillance", under Article 99).
From 26 March to 8 September the SIRENE-Office of the BKA (Federal Office of criminal Investigation) was notified of a total of 6,024 hits involving Germany and resulting from information requests to the SIS. 5,268 of these hits occurred in another Schengen member state, due to a German entry, while 756 hits occurred in Germany due to an entry by another member state. Of the total 6,024 hits, 4,261 concerned aliens denied entry or subject to a deportation order. The above figures do not include SIS hits with no German involvement.
It is noted with some pride that "the German data in particular are constantly changing due to frequent updating", but that "various contracting parties" are late with loading and updating information.
The report expresses satisfaction with the technical functioning of the SIS. However, the only evidence for this presented in the report concerns one single month: in August 1995, the German N-SIS suffered "only a single" one hour system breakdown. (This wording arouses one's curiosity: what is the total number of breakdowns of the C-SIS and all N-SIS in the first six months of operation of the system?).
Common visa policy
"Important progress" was made in realising a common visa policy. The Schengen countries' uniform visa, as affixed inside passports, has technical security features which make counterfeiting all but impossible.
Germany would like the so-called "Grey visa-list" (the list of countries whose nationals are subject to different visa requirements in the Schengen states) to be reduced rapidly. "Due to pressure from the other member states, particularly Germany", Italy agreed to re-introduce a visa obligation for citizens of the FRY (Serbia and Montenegro) in September, the report stresses.
Implementation of the SIA's asylum law provisions
The report identifies a tendency among member states to refuse to take back rejected asylum seekers and other aliens from another member state under the "first country of entry" scheme.
In the opinion of the German government, this is due to inadequately-prepared requests. The report demands that requesting states must present "sufficient circumstantial evidence" showing that the requested state is actually the country of first entry into the Schengen territory. Moreover, the period for replying to a request must be considerably reduced.
Police cooperation
A bi-lateral agreement on police cooperation already exists between Germany and France, and similar agreements are currently being negotiated with the Benelux countries.
Cross-border "hot pursuit" and police observation are already possible for the German police in all Schengen neighbour states. The report lists 11 cases of hot pursuit between the end of March and the beginning of July. All cases concerned the Dutch-German border.
The German government finds it "unsatisfactory" that the individual member states have made different declarations as to space and time limits of police cross-border operations. "Germany advocates a harmonisation and extension of the provisions on observation and hot pursuit. The aim is harmonisation on the basis of the German position: a right of pursuit and seizure for foreign police on the neighbouring territory without any space or time limits."
Fight against drugs
Referring to the French-Dutch dispute on anti-drug policies, the "German government is prepared to once more put pressure on the Hague, together with France" with the aim of obtaining a change in the liberal Dutch policies on drugs. But hinting at the French unwillingness to abolish checks at internal borders, the report also states that "the liberal Dutch attitude in the field of drugs has long been known about, and has not been a reason not to sign, ratify and put into force the Schengen Implementing Agreement".
Overall assessment
Considering the complexity of the Schengen structure, Germany's assessment of cooperation is "predominantly positive". "As the spokesman for the other Schengen states, the Federal Republic of Germany is undertaking all possible measures to continue to propel the Schengen process forward and not to let it be paralysed by the continuation of internal border controls by France". The following action can contribute to achieving this goal: Steady enlargement of Schengen to all EU member states; making it more difficult for Schengen states to maintain checks at internal borders under Article 2.2 SIA, by the establishment of common criteria; "The full use by the Border Protection Police, the Federal Office of criminal Investigation and the Police of the Länder of the widened limits of cooperation provided by the SIA".
Source: Fortschreibung des Berichts über die bisherigen Erfahrungen mit der Anwendung des Schengener Durchführungsabkommens, German Federal Government, Bonn, September 1995. [See also on Schengen in operation: FECL No.32: "'Schengen implementation': First effects on border controls"](/artikel/3201/).Comment
Although the German report gives only figures and assessments of one Schengen member state, it contains some interesting indications as to the development of the Schengen cooperation.
An important preliminary conclusion is that the member states are betraying the main declared aim of the Schengen Agreement - to realize the right of free movement within the Schengen territory. Most member states are simply replacing the former visible and foreseeable forms of control at defined crossing-points at their internal borders by invisible and unforeseeable surveillance in deep zones just inside the border. France is going even further. It is making full use of the arsenal of "compensatory measures" of massively extended police control provided by the Schengen Agreement, while opposing the abolition of internal border controls.
It is well known that police and security circles (and not only in France) while loudly promoting "compensatory measures", have never really accepted the idea of abolishing border checks and are attempting everything to have them re-introduced - formally, as in France, or informally, as in Germany and the Netherlands. Thus, we might soon find ourselves subject to increased policing as a "compensatory measure" for internal border checks that have never really been abolished.
A serious legal deficiency of the Schengen Implementing Agreement also deserves mention. In refusing to abolish its internal border controls, France is pleading Article 2.2, just one of the plethora of exemption clauses that characterise this convention. All other member states appear to agree that France is abusing this provision. However, they have few ways of forcing a French change. For this, the governments of the member states have only themselves to blame. Indeed, by agreeing a convention that does not provide for a common and independent court for its interpretation they have paved the way for conflicts such as the one which currently sets France in opposition to the rest of the Schengen-states. In the long run, this might well result in all member states applying only those parts of the Agreement that suit them, according to their political priorities of the day. This is unlikely to hamper increased police cooperation, but could well contribute to further undermining the rights and liberties of the citizens and in particular of asylum seekers and immigrants.
The German report makes mention of a steady rise of illegal immigration since the beginning of 1995 but sees no connection with the entry into force of the SIA. It would probably be more correct to say that increased illegal immigration is not only due to Schengen, but to generally ever more restrictive European immigration and asylum policies, of which the Schengen cooperation is a driving force. Be that as it may, their are growing indications from all Western European countries that illegal immigration is on a steady rise. This would suggest that the Schengen and EU policy of preventing immigration by increased policing is proving a failure. Some day, we may discover that by pressing migrants into illegality and thereby creating "outlaw" populations in the midst of our societies, so-called European "internal security" policies have become a threat to public security themselves.
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