During the plenary session (22-25/10/2018) of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, MEPs vote on Schengen Information System on the return of illegally staying third-country nationals. The results are: 489 in favour, 105 against and 41 abstentions. Statements by the rapporteur Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL).

statement

Strasbourg

plenary session

vote

Schengen reform package (T)

migration and refugees in Europe (T)

LENAERS, Jeroen (EPP, NL)

Schengen Information System on the return of illegally staying third-country nationals: extracts from the vote and statement by Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), rapporteur

Results:  635 voting 489 in favour 105 against 41abstentions  (2 shots)

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), rapporteur, The Schengen Information System is one of the biggest successes in European policy because it's the system we use to exchange information between for instance national police authorities and it was used over five billion times last year. So police authorities in one country contact police authorities from another country to have information, to exchange information and to know what to do with a certain person.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), rapporteur, What we have done in the new Schengen Information System, we have created a new alert in the system for return decisions. So it means that when somebody asks for asylum in a Member State but is rejected, we exchange information on this, so we make sure that persons who do not get asylum in the EU actually return to their country of origin. In the current situation, this was only nationally. So when somebody left, say from the Netherlands to Germany, it had to start all over again in Germany. This is something we fix now because we need to step up our efforts in return policy.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), rapporteur, For instance also, when a person decides to leave but he doesn't fly away from Amsterdam airport but he flies through Brussels or a German airport, for the first time now we will also contact the Dutch authorities to say, "hey this person has actually left". So the Dutch authorities can focus their efforts, their energy on actually finding those who refused to leave. And this is a very big step forward in order to make our return policy and therefore our asylum policy in general much more efficient.