Estonia’s Schengen accession deferred

08.09.2006

On Thursday 7 September an extraordinary working group meeting called by the Council of Ministers of the European Union discussed a revised schedule for completion of the second generation Schengen information system SIS II. According to this schedule, the systems of new member states would be ready for integration not by the end of 2006 as originally planned, but by June 2008. Estonia would therefore join the Schengen zone by October 2008 at the earliest.

“After SIS II is completed in June 2008 an integration process will begin which will last at least three months,” explained Interior Ministry Secretary-General Märt Kraft after participating in the session. “The most likely scenario is that internal border controls will disappear in the Schengen zone at the beginning of 2009.”

“The difficulties that have arisen in constructing SIS II have mostly been to do with the fact that it represents one of Europe’s biggest and most complex information systems,” Kraft added. “Neither the European Commission nor the member states could have foreseen the problems they have had in creating it. The member states expressed their disappointment during the meeting but also felt that the revised schedule was realistic, as there are no viable alternatives to postponement.”

After reviewing proposals and the project’s particulars the European Commission will look to present a new SIS schedule to the Council of Justice and Home Affairs for approval in October. The Commission then plans to submit the Schengen accession schedule to the Council in December.

According to the initial schedule of SIS II the central system was meant to be completed by the end of 2006, after which the new member states would have had until the end of 2007 to integrate. Evaluation of the operating efficiency of the system would then have taken place and, in the event of a positive result, a decision could have been taken to enlarge the Schengen zone by autumn 2007. In reality this would have meant that internal border controls ceased by the end of October 2007.

The information system is one of the compensatory mechanisms employed in the current Schengen zone to reduce security risks associated with the loss of internal border controls. A new generation system is being constructed to cater for the accession of new member states to the zone. SIS comprises a central system and national systems. The European Commission is behind the construction of the new central system, while each member state is responsible for its own national system.

Katrin Vides
Press Officer
Ministry of Internal Affairs
Phone: 612 5032; 527 6806
katrin.vides@sisemin.gov.ee