Misuse of the Schengen system by Council of Europe member States as a politically-motivated sanction

Motion for a resolution | Doc. 14652 | 12 October 2018

Signatories:

Mr Frank SCHWABE, Germany, SOC ; Ms Doris BARNETT, Germany, SOC ; Ms Eka BESELIA, Georgia, SOC ; Ms Selin Sayek BÖKE, Turkey, SOC ; Mr Ervin BUSHATI, Albania, SOC ; Mr Algirdas BUTKEVIČIUS, Lithuania, SOC ; Mr Ahmet Ünal ÇEVİKÖZ, Turkey, SOC ; Ms Tamar CHUGOSHVILI, Georgia, SOC ; Mr Boriss CILEVIČS, Latvia, SOC ; Mr Vernon COAKER, United Kingdom, SOC ; Ms Stella CREASY, United Kingdom, SOC ; Ms Vanessa D'AMBROSIO, San Marino, SOC ; Mr Yunus EMRE, Turkey, SOC ; Lord George FOULKES, United Kingdom, SOC ; Mr Jonas GUNNARSSON, Sweden, SOC ; Ms Maria GUZENINA, Finland, SOC ; Mr Andrej HUNKO, Germany, UEL ; Ms Eva-Lena JANSSON, Sweden, SOC ; Mr Mogens JENSEN, Denmark, SOC ; Ms Susan Elan JONES, United Kingdom, SOC ; Ms Marianne MIKKO, Estonia, SOC ; Mr Ian MURRAY, United Kingdom, SOC ; Mr Víctor NAUDI ZAMORA, Andorra, SOC ; Ms Carina OHLSSON, Sweden, SOC ; Mr Axel SCHÄFER, Germany, SOC ; Ms Ingjerd SCHOU, Norway, EPP/CD ; Ms Angela SMITH, United Kingdom, SOC ; Mr Manuel TORNARE, Switzerland, SOC ; Lord Don TOUHIG, United Kingdom, SOC ; Mr Mart van de VEN, Netherlands, ALDE ; Mr Martin WHITFIELD, United Kingdom, SOC

This motion has not been discussed in the Assembly and commits only those who have signed it.

In Recommendation 1648 (2004) on the “Consequences of European Union enlargement for freedom of movement between Council of Europe member States”, the Parliamentary Assembly reconfirmed that the Schengen system is intended to establish free movement of persons within a multinational territory (the Schengen area) without internal borders.

In Resolution 1894 (2012) on “The inadmissibility of restrictions on freedom of movement as punishment for political positions”, the Assembly stressed that freedom of movement should not be restricted as a sanction for the expression of peacefully held political opinions and that entries into the Schengen Information System must not be misused in order to deny persons, who are not nationals of a European Union member State, access to the Schengen area as a punishment for expressing such views.

Meanwhile, new cases of allegedly politically-motivated misuse of the Schengen system have occurred in several member States, which made use of their legal right to control access to their respective territories in order to deny entry to certain persons. This would have had the result of unjustifiably denying those persons access to the entire Schengen territory.

The Assembly cannot accept that there are still cases of misuse of the Schengen System. It therefore resolves to re-examine this issue in the form of a new report.