The accession of Baltic countries and the other new EU member states to the Schengen zone will be put off by at least one year because the EU is not ready for their integration. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had hoped to join the Schengen zone by 2007, allowing borderless access to each other and the rest of Western Europe.
However, the EU Council of Ministers last week plotted a new timetable for the completion of a new Schengen information system, known as SIS II, which would complicate the integration of new member states.
The EU said it would not be ready to integrate the information systems of new member states until June 2008. The earliest Estonia can hope to join is October 2008. "After the completion of SIS II in June 2008 an integration process will start, which will continue for at least three months. It is quite likely that checks on the internal borders in the Schengen area will be abolished at the beginning of 2009," said Mart Kraft, general secretary of the Estonian Interior Ministry, who took part in the meeting of the respective work group.
Kraft said the difficulties related to SIS II arise from the fact that it is one of the largest and most complex information systems in the EU and that neither the EU nor the member states were able to foresee the difficulties that its creation would bring.
While the member states did express their disappointment at the delay during Thursday's meeting, they also described the new timetable as realistic, since there is no sensible alternative to postponement, said Kraft.
After the proposals are reviewed and corrections made if necessary, the Commission would present the new technical project of SIS to the justice and interior affairs council in October. The timetable of accession to Schengen would be presented to the council in December.
