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Updated at 16:05
EU MINISTERS HAVE reached a number of agreements today to do with increasing security checks on people travelling between EU member states.
Meeting in Brussels today, EU interior and justice ministers, including Ireland’s Frances Fitzgerald, agreed on proposals for a Passenger Name Record (PNR) Directive, which would allow countries to monitor the passenger information of air carriers.
PNR data is information relating to passengers and their travel, which is collected and held by air carriers.
Under the proposals, airlines would have to hand over the information to countries for inbound and outbound international flights to their territory.
Commenting on the agreement, Minister Fitzgerald said that all ministers present agreed on the importance of the directive.
“We all agree on the importance of this Directive and I like many of my counterparts have been actively engaging with Parliamentarians to drive home the message that achieving an effective, workable and ambitious PNR agreement is key in the fight against terrorism and organised crime,” she said.
Minister Fitzgerald also joined with a number of other EU countries to agree a pilot project that would enhance the exchange of information between police forces.
The Automated Data Exchange Process (ADEP) will test a system which would allow one country to automatically query the database of another if there is a need.
“Ireland is well-known among our EU partners for promoting policing cooperation and this is another example,” the Minister Fitzgerald.
I am happy to support the Garda Síochána’s participation in this pilot scheme, which could have significant benefits down the line in relation to the efficiency of information exchange.”
Brussels meeting
EU minister will also discuss whether to extend internal border checks for up to two years to help many of them cope with record migrant inflows, according to EU sources.
The ministers meeting in Brussels will discuss longer-term checks within the passport-free Schengen zone that benefits most of the EU’s 28 member countries, they added.
Countries like Germany, Austria and Sweden in the last few months have all reintroduced temporary border controls as they were overwhelmed by the flow of asylum seekers, most of whom entered the EU through Greece.
Under current Schengen rules, countries can impose border checks for no longer than six months.
An EU diplomatic source said Luxembourg, which currently holds the bloc’s rotating presidency, had put on the agenda for today’s meeting a proposal to extend such Schengen checks for up to two years.
This would be possible under article 26 of the Schengen code.
“Such a recommendation may be adopted in exceptional circumstances to address a situation where a Schengen evaluation has identified persistent serious deficiencies relating to external border control,” said a draft of the proposal seen by AFP.
The diplomatic source said longer-term reintroductions of border controls “can only be done following a long process of several months,” which would require a report from the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm.
“That’s why we must speak about it now,” the source said, adding that the ministers would not vote on the issue on Friday. Another diplomat said:
It’s not a suspension of Schengen that is being raised, it is an initiative to make sure that states will not leave the Schengen zone after March, if the situation has not improved with Greece.
Schengen includes 22 of the EU’s 28 member states — all except Ireland, Britain, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, and Romania — plus non-EU members Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem warned last week that a small group of EU countries — namely Austria, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden — may be forced to form a “mini-Schengen” if the bloc fails to resolve its migrant crisis since World War II.
The idea is to allow free travel among the countries but to impose controls on their external frontiers.
With reporting from Cormac Fitzgerald
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The Irish Proclamation basically says ”Ireland for the Irish”,,, the politicians of today would do well to remember that,,,
@Finian McG:Politicians off ALL the partys!
@Finian McG: you may interpret it that way if you want but a hundred years on that thinking just won’t wash…
@David Cotter: Well they died to get people OUT of Ireland,,,certianly NOT to bring a load of them in!!!
@Finian McG: yet hundreds of thousands of Irish went to England after that war because Ireland was a basket case…..what an embarrassment that was….
@Finian McG: They are long dead, what they thought is irrelevant! It’s now we live and folks would do well to remember that and try to get to grips with the now instead of trying to reflect the past!
@David Cotter: For them maybe, they are dead and gone, it’s therefore no longer an embarrassment as you mistakenly think but a practical necessity which generally considerably outweighs embarrassment tbf.
@Finian McG: Define ‘Irish’?
Some difference between the leaders of 1916,and the modern day politicians. Worlds apart
@Jb Walshe: Current leaders don’t have guns
@Sal Paradise: Or a clue what they’re at!
@Jb Walshe: Could you list the differences for the crowd? Doubt it ngl!
@Jb Walshe: The leaders of 16 knew they were involved in a fools errand.
Padraig Pearce and all the men and women who fought for our countries freedom would turn in their graves if the saw what’s happening today.
@John doe: that man along with de Valera made sure we were beaten with an iron fist, unfortunately we have FF still
@John doe: They won’t you needn’t worry!
And the state of the country now
@Fintan Pox: Class country. Pearse and co. world new so proud. We have made huge strides in the past 100yrs. But you have a moan to keep yourself happy.
@Sal Paradise: lol
@Fintan Pox: Easter Eggs and complaining on The Journal. You must have had a great day?
@Fintan Pox: compared to mass poverty, tenement houses, Magdalene laundries etc??
@Sal Paradise: dream on
Patriots of 1916 must be turning in their graves with the organisation that stole the SF name who act as cheerleaders for the depraved actions of Provo terrorists who engaged in murder, rape and abuse.
@Pat Hazzard: And the brits and loyalists were just victims and innocent too….I do love when people try to rewrite history, the RA were no angels, but given who they were fighting, both sides were as bad as each other, but the shinners living rent free in your head seems to forget that part
@Tom Newell: ‘who they were fighting’ they planted bombs, executed ‘off duty’ security forces, engaged in sectarian murder along the border farms, shot into churches, work vans, hotels. ‘Fighting’ catch yourself on. They were sectarian murdering thugs. Nothing more.
Absolute traitors the lot of them. The very, very worst.
@Paul Kavanagh: all they’re worried about is when their next pat on the head from the EU or woke NGOs is coming.
They’re sellouts
“The 1916 proclamation was read out in full by Captain Paul Murphy, who learned it off by heart”. Well, why did he need to read it out, then?
@Max: maybe he was dyslexic…..
The patriots of 1916 would be very angry at the INEQUALITY shown by our politicans to the citizens of Ireland. After the next general election 11 people will be gifted a job as a Senator. Millions of Irish citizens DO NOT GET A VOTE with regards to choosing members of the Senate. And the politicans wonder why the people are angry. Enda Kenny picked a friend of his who was and still lives in AMERICA.
@rory Mcgovern: No they wouldn’t.
@rory Mcgovern: we had a vote to abolish the seanad , people voted against it
No sign of Jeffrey ?
@Sat Nav Maps: No answer from his door in London, either.
@Sat Nav Maps: Benzos?
Considering there are irish people of all 360 degrees of whatever all over the planet and yet a few frightened little right wing manboys, think this island is overcrowded because of a few migrants
@Robert Halvey: your a Manboy….
@Robert Halvey: not overcrowded if that’s the way you want to put it, just homelessness increasing regardless of were you’re from but sure let’s increase homelessness some more and sit wondering why.
The Seanad was supposed to have been reformed. It has NOT BEEN. AMAZING and SAD what the population accepts. Mickey d has spent too long in the Arus if he thinks that the values of 1916 proclamation still true today..He will be shocked next year when he has to start spending his own money.
@rory Mcgovern: I doubt it. The little faux-socialist, naval gazer will be on a fine fat pension. Can’t wait to see the back of him and his token wife.
Retire Mick ffs u agreed to 1 term..
Flags and borders will be the last remnants of a bygone age. Money, wealth, power, all badly handled be the simple human mind. Still we don’t fix the problems that affect us on a daily basis or consider the vastness of the universe and how to access it… lads are
like ‘this shiny is mine’… we wait
The men who fought for that would be rolling in their graves. We have had the country 108 years and are giving it away to non nationals and Muslims and Islam’s. Ridiculous and heart breaking
have your say