JHA «Troika» develops common agenda for 2007 - 2008

The interior ministers from Germany, Portugal and Slovenia met on 2 October 2006 in Berlin to agree on a common JHA agenda for their countries’ subsequent Council presidencies in the period from 1 January 2007 until 30 June 2008. A novelty in the history of the European Union, according to the press release of the German ministry of interior. For the sake of consistency this new approach can only be welcomed. In fact it corresponds to policy recommendations earlier made in the framework of CHALLENGE, cf. T. Balzacq and S. Carrera, Migration, Borders and Asylum, CEPS, Brussels, 2005, p. 55; J. Apap and S. Carrera, Progress and Obstacles in the Area of Justice and Home Affairs in an Enlarging Europe, CEPS Working Document N0. 194, CEPS, Brussels, une 2003, pp. 9-11.

The publicized results of the meeting in Berlin read in large parts as an exhaustive tour d’ horizon of all issues currently under discussion or implementation in the field of Justice and Home Affairs.

The following points were agreed upon:

Borders: high priority on SIS II. Fast accession of new member states to Schengen acquis.

Borders: Visa Information System (VIS) «must» become one of the central tools to tackle illegal migration and visa shopping.

Borders: stronger consular cooperation, common points for receiving visa applications, common technical infrastructures.

Borders: extension of FRONTEX to an effective community instrument. FRONTEX «must» be enabled to instruct and coordinate national border guards in a way «that at all our common external borders illegal entries will become the exception».

Borders: Apart from strengthening southern sea frontiers, emphasize will be put on eastern and southeastern neighboring regions.

Terrorism: extensive exchange of information, stored at national police and security agencies.

Terrorism: common harmonized approach to penalize the publication of building and construction plans for bombs and explosives in the internet; banning websites with criminal content; better control of substances that might serve as base materials for bombs and explosives.

Europol: stronger focus on operational added-value.

Policecooperation: cross-border cooperation with the aim of preventing crime.

Civilprotection: Improving and developing cross-border cooperation.

PrümTreaty: Portugal and Slovenia will join. Works to bring the Prüm Treaty within the EU frame shall start fast.

Biometry: Harmonization in this area will be pressed ahead.

Asylum: thorough evaluation of the first phase of harmonization in order to reach proper conclusions for the second phase.

Migration: implementing the measures agreed upon in the Global Approach to Migration, strengthening operational cooperation among member states, dialog and cooperation with Africa and neighboring countries.

Migration: Concerning the development of a common framework for legal migration, wide flexibility must be given to the member states in order to take account of member states’ diverging labor markets.

Integration: Implementation of Common Agenda for Integration. Meeting of all EU minister for integration planned in first half of 2007.

Integration: Promoting intercultural and interreligious dialog.

Documents:

Erstes gemeinsames EU-Praesidentschaftsprogramm der Innenminister fuer den Zeitraum 1. Januar 2007 bis 30. Juni 2008 entwickelt

http://www.bmi.bund.de/

T. Balzacq and S. Carrera, Migration, Borders and Asylum, CEPS, Brussels, 2005.

J. Apap and S. Carrera, Progress and Obstacles in the Area of Justice and Home Affairs in an Enlarging Europe, CEPS Working Document N0. 194, CEPS, Brussels, June 2003.