ONE of the key issues at the Amsterdam Summit was the so-called Schengen agreement. It governs free movement of people, and involves scrapping passport controls between member states. It has for some time been a major demand of MEPs that it be brought into the EU Treaty: this would allow the European Commission and Parliament a say in the process.
Neither the UK nor Ireland has signed up for Schengen. The UK is anxious to retain border controls at ports and airports. Ireland, which has a common passport area with the UK, would like to join, but not if it means giving up its free travel area with the UK - there are no passport checks on journeys between Britain and Ireland.
The UK argues that, as an island nation, it does not face the same situation as mainland Europe, where thousands of people cross land frontiers each day. It considers passport controls to be one of the key weapons in the fight against organised crime and drug smuggling. They are also considered important in countering illegal immigration.
Moreover, accepting open borders almost certainly requires the introduction of ID cards; an idea mooted by the previous UK government, but nowhere to be found in the manifesto of the new Labour government. At Amsterdam, however, the intention was to leave the way open for both the UK and Ireland to join at a later date.
The Schengen agreement does indeed include a commitment to tackling international crime in a border-free Europe. Police "flying-squads" can take advantage of Schengen provisions to operate across borders; in one recent joint operation, Dutch and German police patrolled a border town in Holland together.
In addition, in 1996 the Dutch Gendarmerie responsible for monitoring immigration stopped some 26,110 aliens who attempted to enter the country without valid papers, and some 5,810 forged travel documents were discovered as a result of spot checks in Holland. In April, 1996, the Dutch used a clause in the Schengen agreement, which allows countries to refuse entry to selected groups on grounds of national security, to prevent 1,500 Turks and Kurdish people from entering the country.
The UK is anxious to play a positive role in EUROPOL, the embryonic pan-European police co-operation unit designed to tackle international crime, and is also one of the most active users of the international data base.
Immigration and the question of asylum-seekers is another controversial area where both the UK and Ireland would prefer policy-making to remain in national hands. Under the so-called "safe haven" principle, agreed by the member states under the intergovernmental arrangements of the "Third Pillar", each country agrees to respect national rules on asylum applications.
The intention is that each EU state may reject an application for asylum if a request has already been turned down in another member state; they may return the asylum-seeker to the country of first arrival in the EU. Under present arrangements, appeal is limited to the national courts, as the issue falls outside the scope of the European Court of Justice. This can, however, lead to some surprising rulings: a judge in one case in England refused to recognise Belgium as a "safe haven" and return the asylum applicant to the country in question.
Another appeal, concerning an applicant objecting to being returned to France, was turned down on the grounds that proper procedures were available in France. But with asylum applications now running at 28,000 a year in the UK, and predicted to rise to 6,000 by the end of the year in Ireland, there is concern in both countries that the system is being abused.
A group of Romanians heading for Ireland on forged Spanish passports were only last month prevented from boarding a ferry for Cork. Even the Internet has been dragged into the argument, as information on welfare benefits for asylum seekers in the UK or in Ireland is now available on-line.
Despite border controls, numerous refugees slip through the net and there are an estimated one million illegal immigrants in the UK.
However, it is in Germany, where the highest number of applicants are found, that the situation is most tense. With suspects from 91 different nationalities being held on criminal charges, it is not surprising to see Germany campaigning for a fairer distribution of asylum applicants among the other member states.
The Amsterdam Treaty reflects the foregoing British, Irish and German concerns.