PURPOSE: to improve the Visa Information System (VIS)
to better secure the EU's external borders.
PROPOSED ACT:
Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council.
ROLE OF THE
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the European Parliament decides in accordance
with the ordinary legislative procedure and on an equal footing
with the Council.
BACKGROUND: the Visa Information System (VIS)
was established by Council
Decision 2004/512/EC to serve as the technology solution to
exchange visa data between Member States.
Since 2011, the VIS has served as the technology
solution facilitating the short-stay visa procedure and helping
visa, border, asylum and migration authorities to rapidly and
effectively check the necessary information on third-country
nationals who need a visa to travel to the EU.
The EU common visa policy is an essential part of
the Schengen acquis.
Since the entry into force
of the Visa Code in 2010, the environment in which visa policy
operates has changed drastically. The migration and security
challenges faced in recent years have shifted the political
debate about the area without internal border control in general,
and about visa policy in particular.
In this context, the Union is improving its
information systems for border management in order to fill
information gaps and strengthen internal security. In December
2017 the Commission proposed the rules on interoperability between
EU information systems to make them work together in a smarter and
more efficient way. In 2016, the Entry/Exit Sytem (EES)
Regulation established that that the EES and VIS systems can be
fully interoperable in order to provide a full picture of the visa
application history of third-country nationals by adding
information on how they used their visas.
In addition to the interoperability work
launched since April 2016 to create stronger and smarter
information systems for borders and security, an overall evaluation
of the VIS was carried out in 201614. The evaluation looked
specifically into the system’s fitness for purpose,
efficiency, effectiveness and added value for the EU. It found that
the VIS meets its objectives and functions and remains one of the
most advanced systems of its kind, but that new challenges in visa,
border and migration management meant it needed further
development in a number of specific areas.
At the same time, significant technological
developments are providing new opportunities to make visa
processing easier for both applicants and consulates. Since VIS is
an important component of the framework underpinning visa policy,
this proposal complements the recent proposal amending the Visa
Code presented by the Commission on 14 March 2018.
Since VIS is an important component of the
framework underpinning visa policy, this proposal complements the
recent proposal amending the Visa Code presented by the Commission
on 14 March 2018.
IMPACT ASSESSMENT: this proposal follows the
preferred options of the impact assessment concerning (i) storing a
copy of the biographical data page of the travel document; (ii)
lowering the fingerprinting age and (iii) ensuring automated
migration and security checks against available
databases.
CONTENT: the proposal for a Regulation aims to:
(i) facilitate the visa application procedure; (ii) facilitate and
strengthen checks at external border crossing points and within the
territory of the Member States; (iii) enhance the internal security
of the Schengen area by facilitating the exchange of information
among Member States on third country nationals holders of long stay
visas and residence permits. Consequently, amendments will need to
be made to Regulation
(EC) No 810/2009 (the Visa Code), Regulation
(EC) No 767/2008, Regulation
(EU) 2017/2226 (the EES Regulation), the
Interoperability Regulation and Regulation
(EU) 2016/399 (the Schengen Borders
Code).
The main objectives of this proposal are as
follows:
Closing remaining information gaps: at present, data on documents which allow
third-country nationals to stay in the territory of a given EU
Member State for more than 90 days in any 180-day period are not
collected. The Commission proposes to include long-stay visas
and residence permits in the VIS. By facilitating a better
systematic exchange of information between Member States concerning
third-country nationals holding a long-stay visa and residence
permit, the VIS would contribute to improving internal security in
the Schengen area.
Enhancing checks in visa processing using
interoperability: once in place, the
European Search Portal will allow competent authorities
— including visa processing authorities — to carry out a
single search and receive results from all systems they are
authorised to access (including EURODAC, EES and the European
Criminal Records Information System — Third Country Nationals
(ECRIS)) rather than searching in each system
individually.
In addition to automated queries of other databases,
visa processing will benefit from specific risk indicators.
The indicators will contain data analytics rules, as well as
specific values provided by Member States and statistics generated
from other relevant border management and security databases. This
would improve risk assessments and allow the data-analytics method
to be applied. The risk indicators would not contain any personal
data and would be based on statistics and information provided by
Member States on threats, abnormal rates of refusal or overstay by
certain categories of third country nationals, and public health
risks.
Making it easier to identify missing
persons: quick access should be given
for law enforcement authorities to VIS data to enable a fast and
reliable identification of the person, without the need to fulfill
all the preconditions and additional safeguards for law enforcement
access.
Improving information in the processing of short-stay
visa applications: the Commission
proposes to lower the fingerprinting age for child applicants from
12 to 6 years. This would make it possible to carry
out checks when crossing an external border but also to offer
children better protection and contribute to the fight against
trafficking in human beings. It also proposes to
store a copy of the bio-page of the applicant's travel document in
the VIS in order to facilitate return procedures.
Upgrading other technical
components of the VIS: the VISMail mechanism for consultations is
integrated in the VIS in order to streamline the exchanges between
the VIS central system and the national systems. The configuration
of the central system is adapted to better respond to the need to
rapidly and efficiently ensure availability in periods of
disruption. In order to improve the quality of the data recorded in
the VIS, data quality defect indicators have been introduced at
application level.
BUDGETARY IMPLICATIONS: following the technical
study carried out by eu-LISA in 2016, the necessary budget is
estimated at EUR 182 million. The development phase is
foreseen between 2021 and 2023, and the necessary funds will
therefore be part of the amount allocated in the next EU budget. If
the proposal is adopted before the next financial framework, the
necessary resources (estimated at EUR 1.5 million) will be financed
from the ISF borders and visas budget line and the amounts will be
deducted from the amount allocated for the period
2021-2023.