The Commission of the European Union has prepared a five-year report on the operation of the Schengen assessment and monitoring process, consisting of the results of the evaluations carried out within the Schengen Region Member States over the last five years.
The report was released on Monday, 30 November, in advance of the Schengen Conference between the Members of the European Parliament and the Ministers of Home Affairs, which will bring together the Ministries of the Interior and the Border Police to facilitate meaningful cooperation.
According to the study the results of more than 200 surveys carried out between 2015 and 2019 indicate that, overall, the Schengen States are enforcing the Schengen rules adequately, with significant shortcomings found only in a few countries and correctly resolved most of the time.
"With the exception of data protection and police cooperation, 29 unannounced visits and 8 revisits were carried out for 15 countries in all the main policy fields," the study explains.
Based on these visits, the Commission adopted 198 assessment reports and the Council addressed over 4,500 recommendations to Member States. However only 45 assessments have been completed, although other assessment findings and recommendations have yet to be implemented.
The report found that there are some recurring weaknesses in the Member States' application of the Schengen Acquis, including divergent procedures, which the Commission claims have an effect on the proper functioning of the Schengen region.
'Evaluations have required multiple recurrent deficiencies to be detected and resolved,' notes the paper, explaining that a number of Member States have taken a constructive approach towards enhancing the deficiencies identified during the evaluations.
The Commission reports that as the revisits have shown, several Member States have taken immediate remedial steps even before the Council adopted its recommendations.
The primary results per policy area are as follows:
Management of the External Border
The evaluation report covers several elements of Management of the External Border, which are:
- Sea and airport external border checks and land border crossing points
- Surveillance of external frontiers
- Global policies,
- The European Integrated Border Control Principles
- Analysis of Threats
- Cooperation between entities and globally
- Mechanism for national quality control
- Management of the External Border capacities (personnel and equipment)
- Management of the External Border infrastructure
The 42 assessments carried out in this respect indicate that the Member States are successfully enforcing, to a large extent, the Schengen Borders Code and are managing external borders in accordance with it.
And despite that progress has also been made to harmonise Member States’ strategic approaches towards Management of the External Border, serious deficiencies have been found in four member states – in Greece, Spain, Sweden and Iceland. All four have worked in this direction since the evaluations took place.
"No Member State has serious deficiencies in this area today, but there are still specific challenges in a few countries that need to be addressed promptly," the study highlights.
It also notices that Member States do not yet have a uniform degree of control at the external borders of the EU and on a variety of issues in this regard, practice various approaches.
'Strategic preparation for integrated border management is not adequate in different Member States, resulting in decreased inter-institutional cooperation, duplication of competences between different external border authorities and allocation of fragmented resources,' notes the paper, adding that these deficiencies could reduce operational efficiency and capacity to respond.
Overall, the report concludes that the efficiency of external border controls is strong, although it still differs between member states.
Popular policy on Visas
Another policy field evaluated in the report is also the Popular policy on Visas of the Schengen area, which is deeply linked to Management of the External Border.
The Commission has carried out 29 visa-related assessments in the Member States over a five-year period, and significant deficiencies have been found only in two Member States, during the 2018 Finland assessment and the 2019 Netherlands unannounced assessment.
In addition, despite the shared regulatory structure, the visa issuance practices of the Member States are still diverging in many aspects. As the Commission concludes in its report, consular personnel also often see Schengen visas as 'national' visas.
It also finds that the image of Schengen as a popular travel area is undermined by competition between States in 'attractive markets' and 'visa-shopping'-which is the practice of applicants finding consulates that grant visas more quickly and in shorter periods than others.
The report also discusses other shortcomings, such as the disparity in Member States' practices in assessing the validity of visas and the documentation needed for the application, notwithstanding the list of documents accepted by the Commission.
"In all cases, especially in the case of centralized decision-making, the examination of applications has not been found to be sufficiently thorough," the report concludes.
It also highlights that there are shortages of personnel and a lack of staff preparation in many consulates, contributing to the inability of these consulates to meet the deadlines set out in the Visa Code.
Other reported concerns are as follows:
- External service providers' monitoring is not always satisfactory.
- External service suppliers' operations often comply with legal requirements.
- Even if applicants have issued fingerprints in the previous five years, a systematic selection of fingerprints
- Incomplete or obsolete data made available to the public on terms and conditions
- Inadequate standard information is often entered into the Visa Information System,
- The absence of sufficient VIS IT preparation, including minimal knowledge of certain device functionalities,
Nevertheless the study concludes that in the last five years, the majority of vulnerabilities have been reported and effectively resolved.
Schengen Information System: The
Significant shortcomings have also been found by the Commission in implementing the SIS, which is a crucial system for the abolition of internal border controls, as it provides critical support in the Schengen region for security policy.
According to 32 surveys carried out in recent years, shortcomings have been reported in four Member States that have been actively involved in addressing them.
'Certain recurring shortcomings have occurred during the assessments, such as the lack of technological resources or necessary country-level procedures for uploading fingerprints and photographs to SIS alerts, even when they are available,' notes the study.
It also points out that some of the features implemented in 2013 by SIS II relate to another frequent finding, in particular that not all information found in the SIS warnings is shown to end-users.
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