Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-03-09-Speech-2-065"
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"en.20100309.5.2-065"2
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"Mr President, as the rapporteur pointed out, the aim of this proposal is to facilitate movement within the Schengen area for third-country nationals who are legally residing in one of the Member States on the basis of a long-stay or ‘D’ visa. According to the current Schengen
third-country nationals who hold a residence permit can travel freely within the Schengen Area because the residence permit is equivalent to a visa.
I want to thank once again the LIBE Committee, the JURI Committee and the rapporteur for their very constructive approach to this.
However, there has been a recent trend in Member States not to convert long-stay visas into residence permits upon arrival. That is why we are having this discussion here today; obviously, the Commission, the Council and the Parliament had to find a solution to the problem. The legal and practical situation has considerable negative consequences for third-country nationals legally staying in our Member States on the basis of a D visa. These persons can neither legally travel to another country nor can they transit through the territory of another country when they want to return to their country of origin. The absurdity of this situation was illustrated by the example that the rapporteur, Mr Coelho, raised.
The best solution would, of course, be that all Member States issue the necessary residence permits and that they do this in time. Unfortunately, this is not the situation today, and therefore we have the present proposal which aims at extending the principle of equivalence between a residence permit and short-stay visas to long-stay D visas. A third-country national holding a long-stay D visa issued by a Member State will thereby be able to travel to the other Member States for three months in any half year under the same conditions as the holder of a residence permit. This would restore the basic philosophy underlying the creation of an area without internal borders, namely that the person can travel around in the Schengen area for short stays with the documents based on which he or she is legally present in a Member State.
I was very pleased to learn that Mr Carlos Coelho had expressed his support for this proposal from the very beginning and the rapporteur, together with the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and the Committee on Legal Affairs, has understood that action needs to be taken in order to facilitate the life of third-country nationals, because we want to encourage people legally residing in our area. I want to thank the rapporteur for his constructive approach to this.
I do not need to remind you that we have to find a solution quickly, especially due to the Visa Code which will be applicable from 5 April this year and will abolish the so-called D+C visas which were intended to partly remedy the situation of D visa holders. I believe that the final text on the draft regulation satisfied all the parties since the compromise text was agreed between all the institutions. In order to tackle some of the concerns expressed by the European Parliament and the Member States – for instance, concerning security – several amendments have been made to the initial text.
To give a few examples, the proposal shortens the period of validity for long-stay visas. They should have a period of validity of no more than one year. After this one year period, the proposal established the obligation for Member States to issue a residence permit.
The requirement of systematic checks in the Schengen Information System (SIS) is also reinforced. Where a Member State considers issuing a residence permit or a D visa, the responsible authority should systematically carry out a search in the Schengen Information System in order to avoid a situation where we have an alert at the same time as a long-stay visa.
In order to give a response to the security concerns regarding biometrics – and this is, of course, a major issue for many Member States – a political declaration has, as you know, been attached to the draft regulation in which the Commission is invited to study the possibility of the use of biometric identifiers with respect to long-stay visas and to present the results in the study to this plenary and the Council by 21 July 2011. The Commission also accepts that a reporting obligation has been included in the draft regulation on the application.
To conclude, in order to find a compromise response to the major concern of the European Parliament concerning the guarantee for high-level data protection in cases where an alert has been issued in the SIS, a joint declaration has been agreed. The Commission is invited by the Council and the European Parliament to present the necessary legislative proposals amending the relevant data protection provision for the Schengen Convention if there are further substantial delays in implementing the SIS II that go beyond 2012. I believe that, with these changes, we have reached a reasonable, well-balanced solution that will considerably facilitate the lives of the third-country nationals that are residing legally in our countries. It will also very much correspond to the philosophy of a Europe without internal borders."@en1
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