Accession of Croatia to the Schengen area

9.10.2017

Question for written answer E-006312-17
to the Commission
Rule 130
Tonino Picula (S&D)

As noted in the recent Commission communication on preserving and strengthening Schengen, the Schengen area is the largest free travel area in the world. It allows more than 400 million EU citizens, as well as visitors, to move freely, and enables goods and services to flow unhindered. Schengen is one of the major achievements of European integration. However, Schengen is exposed to numerous pressures, both externally and internally, that put in question its future enlargement.

In view of the State of the Union speech and the abovementioned Commission communication:

Does the Commission plan to undertake a mediator role to assist, with the approval of the Council, such Member States as have met all the criteria to join Schengen, or to conduct talks with Member States that have announced they will oppose any future enlargement of Schengen, even though all the formal criteria have been met, for reasons relating to outstanding bilateral issues between the countries concerned?

Following the evaluation of the SIS provisions in September and ahead of the evaluation of external borders due next month, can the Commission explain on what basis it is generally assessing the readiness of Croatia to join Schengen and to what extent Croatia has so far fulfilled the requested criteria? Is there an expected timeline for fulfilment by Croatia of all the remaining conditions?