EU Terrorism Checks Watered Down to Avoid Holiday Queues

Local Editor

The European Commission had watered down universal counter-terrorism checks on EU passport holders that the French had demanded.

According to The Telegraph, terrorists could be able to enter Europe unchecked using EU passports after the European Commission watered down proposed security measures.

In November last year European interior ministers agreed that the passports of both EU and non-EU citizens should be systematically checked against an anti-terrorist database when they enter Europe's Schengen zone.

The plans, drawn up by France and backed by David Cameron, came amid fears that both the Charlie Hebdo terrorists and Paris terrorists used EU passports to travel from Syria.

However, draft legislation reveals that the European Commission had significantly weakened the planned inspections regime, the report indicated.

Under the proposed amendment to the Schengen Borders Code, officials will be able to suspend the blanket checking of EU citizens' passports against the Schengen Information System [SIS] and Interpol database at road borders and ports if there are risks it could cause a "disproportionate impact on the flow of traffic at the border". Diplomats said that is likely to apply to peak holiday times.

Instead, they will be able to implement spot-checks on EU passport holders they suspect may be threats, after conducting a risk assessment that it will not pose a security risk.

For their part, Germany and other European countries had called for looser rules to apply at airports, leaked papers from the Council of Ministers showed.

Though, the move to water-down the new system of checks has angered France, which demanded a blanket regime in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks and again after the Paris massacre, in which 130 people were killed.

Furthermore, Theresa May, the Home Secretary, will call for universal checks at a summit of European interior ministers in Brussels on Thursday. But she will not be able to vote as the rules apply to only to the Schengen zone, of which the UK is not a part.

At present, only non-EU passport holders are meant to have SIS checks, whereas EU passport holders should in normal circumstances only undergo a cursory visual inspection of a passport - for the sake of respecting their "freedom of movement" rights.

At the time of the Paris attacks, just 1.5 per cent and 17 per cent of EU passports were subject to an SIS check, depending on the country, The Telegraph stated.

In November, interior ministers agreed to "implement immediately the necessary systematic" checks. However, any new regime will require approval of the European Parliament and will come in at July at the earliest, although sources could not rule out the process dragging on into 2017.

The European Commission said it would not comment ahead of the meeting on Thursday.

Iain Duncan Smith, the pro-Brexit work and pensions secretary, claimed this weekend that EU membership increases the likelihood of a Paris-style attack in Britain due to free movement rules.

Britain has access to the Schengen Information System, and exercises blanket checks on all travelers against the database and other criminal records and counter-terrorism systems. Cameron had claimed leaving the EU would jeopardize access to SIS, and thereby imperil national security.

However, weaknesses in the application of SIS by other countries increases the chances of militants being smuggled illicitly into Britain from France, as well as heightening the risk of atrocities on the continent.

There are also concerns that EU states are uploading too little information on their suspected extremists onto SIS.

Some 5,000 EU citizens are known to have travelled to fight in Iraq and Syria, and hundreds may have returned.

Source: The Telegraph, Edited by website team