On May 8th the first course for Schengen evaluators finished. It took place at the Finnish Border and Coast Guard Academy in Helsinki and involved 28 participants from Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
The task of the Schengen Evaluation Working Group (SCHEVAL) is to assess how the existing signatories of the Schengen Treaty comply with the rules and evaluate whether the member states are sufficiently prepared to implement them. The numerous measures that need to be fulfilled to compensate for the free movement of persons and the lifting of EU internal borders are set out in the Schengen acquis and cover not only border control, but also the modality of visa issuance, police cooperation, data protection etc.
The graduates of this course will be part of SCHEVAL Joint Evaluation Teams, visiting a number of countries’ airports, police stations, harbours and other bodies involved in the process, which are expected to comply with the Schengen acquis rules.
This is the first time that the evaluators working for SCHEVAL have undergone formalised training on a European level, according to a standardised programme. This one-week course was organised by Frontex at the initiative of the European Council and was developed in cooperation with experts from EU Member States, the General Secretariat of the EU Council and the EU Commission.
The training course was given to experts on external border evaluation and included such elements as preparation and carrying out of evaluation missions, Schengen Catalogue of recommendations and best practices, drafting of reports and methodologies for gathering and assessing information. At the end of the course, the trainees were asked to conduct a mock evaluation of land, sea and air borders of a chosen country.