Jihadists on EU passports could slip past checks as Brussels weakens security
TERRORISTS may be able to enter Europe unchecked using EU passports after the European Commission watered down proposed security controls,
The Daily Telegraph can disclose. In November last year, European leaders agreed that the passports of all travellers entering Europe should be checked against an anti-terrorist database. The plans, drawn up by France and backed by David Cameron, came amid fears that the Charlie Hebdo terrorists and the Nov 13 Paris attackers used EU passports to travel from Syria.
However, draft papers show that the European Commission has watered down the checks.
Under the revised plans, officials will be able to lift the blanket checks of EU citizens against the Schengen Information System (SIS) at road borders and ports if they risk causing a “disproportionate impact on the flow of traffic”, such as at peak holiday times.
Instead, officials will implement spot-checks on EU passport holders they suspect may be a threat.
Some countries also want the looser rules to apply at airports. Germany is understood to have lobbied for a weaker regime.
SIS contains the details of hundreds of thousands of missing travel docu- ments, suspect cars and missing criminals as well as hundreds of suspected terrorists.
At present, only non-EU passport holders are meant to undergo SIS checks, whereas EU passport holders should in normal circumstances only require a cursory inspection of a passport – for the sake of respecting their “freedom of movement” rights.
But following the Paris terror attacks last year, France demanded a tougher regime – and is now angered by the move to water down the plans.
Around 5,000 EU citizens are known to have travelled to fight in Iraq and Syria. Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Belgian architect of the Paris atrocity, had boasted in a jihadist magazine of how police failed to catch him as he moved several times between Belgium and Syria, with border guards failing to recognise his face as a wanted man.
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, will call for universal checks at a summit of European interior ministers in Brussels on Thursday. But she will not be able to vote as the rules apply to Schengen zone.
Iain Duncan Smith, the pro-Brexit Work and Pensions Secretary, claimed this weekend that EU membership increases the likelihood of a Paris-style attack in Britain due to free movement rules.
Britain has access to SIS, and applies blanket checks against the database along with other criminal records and counter-terrorism systems. The Prime Minister has claimed leaving the EU would jeopardise access to this system.
However, weaknesses in the application of SIS by other countries increase the chances of fighters being smuggled illicitly into Britain from France, as well as heightening the risk of atrocities on the continent.
At the time of the Paris attacks, between 1.5 per cent and 17 per cent of EU passports were subject to an SIS check, depending on the state. EU officials admitted Abaaoud would have had “good odds” of reaching Europe unhindered.
In November, interior ministers agreed to “implement immediately the necessary systematic” checks. However, any new regime will require approval by the European Parliament and will come in at July at the earliest, although sources could not rule out the issue dragging on into 2017.
The European Commission said it would not comment ahead of the decision on Thursday.