Examination of Witnesses (Questions 520-539)
Mrs Laura Yli-Vakkuri
28 NOVEMBER 2006
Q520 Chairman: I think my last question
is from your point of view how do you see the readiness of new
members, particularly Bulgaria and Romania, at this point in time
to take part in these discussions and these proposals?
Mrs Yli-Vakkuri: Bulgaria and Romania, as from
the signing of their Accession Agreements, have participated in
the Council work as observers, so they have had the opportunity
to follow the discussions as far as Schengen enlargement issues
are concerned and I think it has been a very useful and helpful
opportunity for them to learn as well, so we hope that after 1
January they can start participating more actively.
Q521 Chairman: Be fully involved?
Mrs Yli-Vakkuri: Yes.
Q522 Lord Dubs: I wonder if I could just
follow up on this wider issue. You mentioned that there were a
number of countries within Schengen that were not in the EU, and
you mentioned Norway, Iceland and Switzerland, and then you have
got Denmark, Britain and Ireland who are in the EU but not in
Schengen.
Mrs Yli-Vakkuri: That is why I said that Schengen
is a paradise for lawyers.
Lord Teverson: Denmark is in Schengen.
Q523 Lord Dubs: Denmark is not in Schengen.
Mrs Yli-Vakkuri: It is in Schengen but it has
an opt-out concerning other first pillar matters in the EU.
Q524 Lord Dubs: Leaving aside the work
that this produces for lawyers, I take it there is no thought
given to other countries being able to be part of Schengen who
are not in the EU on the model of Switzerland, Norway and so on?
Are we saying Schengen is there and the only extension will be
if other countries join the EU?
Mrs Yli-Vakkuri: I would say that geography
plays a big role here. By the way, we are negotiating with Liechtenstein
at the moment. I have not heard of any other further applications.
Q525 Lord Avebury: How about Kaliningrad?
Mrs Yli-Vakkuri: Kaliningrad, yes.
Q526 Chairman: An interesting question.
Mrs Yli-Vakkuri: An interesting question.
Q527 Chairman: You need a few more lawyers
for that.
Mrs Yli-Vakkuri: Indeed.
Q528 Lord Dubs: Would you mind if I went
back to the point you answered a little while ago about the British
position as regards sharing information on immigration.
Mrs Yli-Vakkuri: Yes.
Q529 Lord Dubs: You said from the point
of view of law enforcement it would be a good thing if this information
were shared.
Mrs Yli-Vakkuri: Yes.
Q530 Lord Dubs: Are you reflecting a
unique position in this or is there a wider view that, in fact,
the countries that are not in Schengen could usefully exchange
immigration information with Schengen in order to help with law
enforcement? It is a point that our Chairman made a little while
ago. Is there a sense that there might be some movement on this?
You have made a more positive statement than perhaps some people
have.
Mrs Yli-Vakkuri: These matters are being discussed
all the time. Let us say it is a horizontal issue in a sense because
we are talking about fighting organised crime and terrorism and
so on, so in the context of these discussions these points pop
up. I do not know, I am not an expert on police co-operation so
it would be difficult for me to answer. If we go back to the data
on refusals of entry, for instance, even though the UK does not
have at the moment, or will not have, direct access to these alerts,
the EU instruments dealing with asylum issues—the first
pillar instruments in which the UK does participate and which
are not Schengen related—provide for co-operation between
the Member State authorities so the UK has the possibility to
discuss this with colleagues from other countries on the basis
of those instruments.
Lord Dubs: I think you are right about
how good it is for lawyers!
Q531 Lord Teverson: I had not realised
Switzerland was part of this system actually.
Mrs Yli-Vakkuri: Not yet. The agreement with
Switzerland has not entered into force yet, there are still some
parliamentary reservations left. They will enter into force quite
soon I would expect.
Q532 Lord Teverson: In terms of the civil
liberties or the control aspects related to Schengen and the use
of the information, does that mean that the regulations effectively
have to be passed by those national parliaments more or less as
they are in the EU? That is presumably a condition and they are
pretty well identical to the equivalent EU regulations in terms
of data protection and that sort of stuff.
Mrs Yli-Vakkuri: There is a guillotine clause,
I do not know if you can call it that. If the associated states—Iceland,
Norway, Switzerland—refuse to adopt or apply a Schengen
related legal instrument the Council will have to determine what
to think of that and then in a very hypothetical case the third
country concerned would be left outside Schengen. This is really
hypothetical, it has not happened yet and it would be very difficult
to foresee this kind of situation.
Q533 Lord Teverson: For Norway and Iceland
and Liechtenstein it is similar to the EEA procedures anyway in
terms of reflecting Directives and Regulations?
Mrs Yli-Vakkuri: Yes.
Q534 Lord Teverson: But Switzerland is
obviously different.
Mrs Yli-Vakkuri: No, it is not different. The
rules are the same for them as for Norway and Iceland. Switzerland
does not apply Schengen yet. After their agreement has come into
force the normal Schengen evaluation process will start and it
will take some time, so we are not talking about something which
will happen even next year, we are probably talking about 2008
at the earliest.
Q535 Lord Teverson: Do they pay part
of the developments costs of the SIS II system?
Mrs Yli-Vakkuri: Yes.
Q536 Earl of Listowel: You mentioned
that you are involved with Schengen evaluation as well. Can you
say a bit more about the Schengen Evaluation Team and in particular
perhaps about possible developments of it, for instance no warning
visits or how co-operation with authorities in the monitoring
process might be improved. What about pressures to go forward
once the assessment has been made even if there are questions
within the assessment provided by the evaluation team, the political
pressures to go ahead? Are you calm about that? Do you feel any
concern about that? Finally, can you indicate what sort of worst
case scenarios you have thought of in terms of the abuse of the
data provided either by an individual or perhaps leakage to organised
crime? Perhaps that is a bit far from your experience.
Mrs Yli-Vakkuri: I have been involved in the
Schengen evaluation work since 1998 or 1999 and I have followed
the evaluations of the Nordic countries and the recent evaluation
processes. The Schengen evaluation consists of two parts. First
of all you have the evaluation of the possible newcomers, and
that is what we are talking about in respect of the new Member
States now, and then you have an ongoing evaluation of the Schengen
states who already apply Schengen. The Schengen system is based
on trust, so you have to trust the others and from time to time
you want to check that everything is okay in the other Schengen
states. That is the other aspect of the Schengen evaluation. We
do have a working group, which is called the Schengen Evaluation
Working Party, which meets here in the Council. I am the Chairman
of that working group during the Finnish Presidency. We are horizontalists
obviously, nobody can be an expert on all issues. This Working
Party has established evaluation committees for all aspects of
Schengen—including the land borders, air borders, sea borders,
police co-operation, visas, data protection—and these committees
visit the countries concerned. For instance, this year has been
quite heavy for the experts because we have had to visit ten Member
States and we have had six subject areas. Normally you do not
visit a country for half a day or one day only, you spend some
time there, you travel along the border, et cetera. We did 58
evaluation emissions this year, we assessed and discussed the
reports in this working group and now we are finalising the conclusions.
Concerning the information that is received and discussed during
the evaluation process, until now they have been so-called restricted
documents so it is understood that this information is confidential
by nature.
Q537 Earl of Listowel: That is very helpful,
thank you. Are you concerned that having done all this work political
pressures will perhaps push things forward when the careful reports
you have made do indicate some concern about a particular area
in a particular country? When I was talking about the sensitivity
of the information and the worst case scenarios I was thinking
of if a country was not doing a good enough job at safeguarding
this information what is the worst case scenario from the point
of view of a data subject that you could imagine happening to
that person? What is the worst case scenario in terms of organised
crime or whatever else obtaining access to the Schengen system,
being able to know when an alert is going out about somebody being
surveyed or something like that? Perhaps that is a bit far away
from your experience. What you have said so far has been very
helpful and perhaps that is as much as is necessary for you to
say at the moment.
Mrs Yli-Vakkuri: Again, I must say that nobody
is perfect, not even Finland, although we were assessed quite
positively concerning our borders. At some point you will have
to decide that the trust is there and the Schengen Acquis is implemented
in a satisfactory manner. This assessment may include, for instance
the verification of whether a stamp is placed in the right place
on the passport. As you can see, technical issues like that are
assessed and but obviously more crucial issues are emphasised.
This is where the evaluation process truly comes into play. You
may have to visit these countries again and see whether the weakness
has been remedied or not. It is an ongoing evaluation. It is in
The Hague programme, by the way, that the Commission will submit,
I think next year, a proposal to develop the evaluation procedures
in the justice and home affairs areas so we will debate and see
how we should develop the system.
Earl of Listowel: Thank you very much.
Q538 Chairman: Mrs Yli-Vakkuri, thank
you very much indeed. You have given us very helpful answers to
our questions, we are most grateful to you for coming. We wish
you good luck in the remaining 31 days of your Presidency.
Mrs Yli-Vakkuri: Thank you very much. It is
true that we are counting the days!
Q539 Chairman: But you are taking a few
days off for Christmas, I hope?
Mrs Yli-Vakkuri: Yes.
Chairman: Thank you so much.
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