31/05/2013
An interesting feature of the European Union is the glacial speed with which it acts. To that extent, one could venture that it represents no threats to our liberties. If it ever went to war against us, the fighting would be done and dusted, with Brussels occupied by the 7th Mounted Refuse Collectors, before the external [in]action service had held its first committee meeting.
On the other hand, when things do start moving, there is a certain relentless quality to them, as they grind on to a conclusion â as witnessed by the latest development on the "Schengen governance package" which has just been passed through trialogue and been agreed by Council and European Parliament.
This actually stems from
April 2011 and a rather messy incident on the French-Italian border, when waves of North African migrants were crossing into France from Italy, and the French police, clad in riot gear, closed the border to stop the inrush. More than 700 migrants who had crossed into French territory via Italy were detained and escorted back.
This now brings us to another feature of the EU â the fact that nothing is ever straightforward, with the story varying according to who or what you read.
Thus, the European Parliament will have it that a deal has been struck to
strengthen the Schengen area, maintaining free movement within Schengen area borders as "a core EU value".
On the other hand,
Deutsche Welle claims that Schengen states have been granted more control over their borders, and will in future be allowed to introduce border controls in future when faced with the entry of a large number of illegal immigrants. And this, according to
Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten is the "end of freedom to travel in Europe", with the new move undermining the reform of the Schengen Agreement.
However, in a separate piece in
DW speaks to Green MEP Ska Keller, who also believes the Agreement is being undermined.
The commission gets a marginally more important role, since it is able to oversee measures taken by the individual countries, but there are now more reasons that member states can offer to justify closing their borders - specifically, when the border controls in other Schengen countries are "seriously inadequate". And that, says Keller, is a very woolly criterion which could mean anything.
Needless to say, the British print media doesn't have a view on this, but the
BBC has Vice-President of the European Parliament's Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, Sylvie Guillaume, welcoming the new measure.
"This long-awaited decision is a major achievement which will prevent any future reintroduction of border controls for political purposes," she says, to the sound of exploding heads as people try to work out precisely what this is all about.
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