Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-03-09-Speech-2-064"
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"en.20100309.5.2-064"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today we are speaking about absurd situations such as that of a student who obtains a visa in order to take a course in Belgium. Not falling within the remit of Directive 2004/114/EC, he may not go to the Netherlands to gather information from a specialised library for the purposes of writing his thesis nor benefit from a weekend getting to know Barcelona because he will be arrested in the country which issued the visa.
It also recognises the need to strengthen the level of data protection which exists under the Schengen Agreement and recommends that the Commission should present the necessary initiatives if SIS II does not enter into operation before 2012.
With the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, the two initial proposals were merged together and a new legal basis was provided. The text upon which we are going to vote in this plenary session is the result of the negotiations which continued under the Swedish and Spanish presidencies. This resulted in an agreement at first reading, hence allowing this regulation to be adopted before the entry into force of the Visa Code.
Mr President, I would have liked to invite the Spanish Presidency, which is absent from this debate, to guarantee to Parliament that the regulation can enter into force before 5 April 2010. It is essential for this to occur in order to avoid an omission in the law.
I congratulate the European Commission for this timely initiative. I am grateful for the faithful collaboration of the Council, particularly that of the Swedish and Spanish presidencies, and the cooperation of the shadow rapporteurs, which has allowed a broad consensus in the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. With this measure, we can resolve a troublesome problem faced by thousands of citizens of third countries and do it well, strengthening both freedom and security along the way.
The Schengen Convention stipulates that holders of a long-stay visa may only reside in the territory of the Member State which provided the visa. They may not travel to other Member States nor pass through other Member States on their return to their country of origin.
Schengen stands for freedom of movement. Any person who legally resides in a Member State should be able to move freely within an area where there are not internal borders. The ideal solution would be for the Member States to comply with their obligation to provide a residence permit to nationals of third countries who are holders of this type of visa. However, this does not happen in the vast majority of Member States.
Member States have temporarily got around this situation by issuing type D + C visas, which allow the holders of a long-stay visa to move freely within the Schengen area for the first three months. This type of visa will be abolished from April 2010 with the entry into force of the Community Visa Code which will make it even more urgent to find a solution to this problem.
The amendments which I have proposed and which have the support of the majority of the members of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs contribute towards the resolution of this problem without reducing security in the Schengen area.
The obligation to consult the Schengen Information Service during the processing of requests for long-stay visas is the same procedure as the one which already exists for nationals of third countries who are holders of residence permits. In this way, we have responded to any fears of decreased security.
The truth is that various Member States have been providing long-stay visas and, subsequently, residence permits, without first consulting the SIS, in particular, with respect to the requirements of Article 96 on the effects of a refusal of admission.
This practice weakens the security of the Schengen area and creates problems on its external borders in cases where individuals with a valid visa are recorded in the SIS. This creates complicated and unnecessary situations for individuals and border guards who have to attempt to discover whether visas have been falsified, whether a reference on the SIS system is incorrect and should be removed, or whether the visas should never have been granted.
The initiative on which we are going to vote will allow the holders of long-stay visas to move freely for a period of three out of every six months. This is the same period as holders of residence permits are allowed and, at the same time, it also ties the Member States to their obligation to provide residence permits in cases where stays of more than one year are authorised."@en1
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