The Salzburg Forum (SF) is a Central European security partnership of Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Member states cooperate in areas of police cooperation, illegal immigration, witness protection, fight against drugs, traffic safety and other areas of internal security. They also focus on positions coordination and advancing common interests in the European Union in the area of Home Affairs. At least two conferences of interior ministers per year are held. As a rule, three SF ministerial meetings are held per year. One meeting takes place in the country holding the presidency and one further meeting is usually held in summer in Austria. In addition, ministers regularly meet in the margins of EU Council meetings.
Purpose
In a report on migration in the Czech Republic, the responsible Czech ministry published the following summary on SF.
“The Ministers of the Interior of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Austria, Slovakia, and Slovenia have cooperated within the Salzburg groups since the adoption of the Salzburg Declaration in 2001. Ministers of Bulgaria and Romania joined the group in 2005 as candidate countries of the European Union. This cooperation became a basis for close partnership of participating countries in activities relating to internal security and regional stability. The initial objective of the Salzburg Group was, through mutual cooperation and exchanges of experience, to facilitate the inclusion of candidate countries and new EU Member States into a single European area of freedom, security and justice, with priorities being police cooperation, border checks, illegal migration, and asylum. Activities of the Salzburg Group focus nowadays mainly on specific cooperation in the area of common regional issues in the context of membership of the Salzburg Group states in the European Union. The Salzburg Group is, according to the statement of the Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs, Mr. Frattini, at the meeting of the Ministers of the Interior of the Salzburg Group states held in Gratz, Austria, in July 2005, an important forum for the exchange of opinions, ideas and experiences concerning the creation of the area of freedom, security and justice, i.e. tasks arising from the Hague Programme. A special emphasis is, in this context, placed on regional cooperation regarding asylum and migration, in particular on enhancing information exchanges and cooperation between public institutions concerned, the development of common strategies for combating illegal migration, trafficking in human beings and the exploitation of women and children, as well as on the harmonisation of relevant legal provisions of the European Union in relation to third countries. With regard to the domain of asylum, cooperation aims at harmonising standards for the admission of asylum seekers and procedural guarantees corresponding with the good practice of asylum proceedings in EU Member States. An Expert Working Group for information on countries of origin of asylum seekers operates within the Salzburg Group.”2005 Status Report on Migration in the Czech Republic by the MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC, Page 49.
Structure
The Ministers of Interior of the member states (and their experts) meet several times per year. Since 1 July 2004 the SF has been organized as a semi-annual presidency, which rotates in alphabetical order according to the English name of the member states. Until 1 July 2004 all the SF meetings were organized solely by Austria.
Reconstructed timeline
17–19 July 2003, Fuschl (Salzburg)
At the fourth SF participants included not only the six members, but also Antonio Vitorino (EU Commissioner for JHA) and Giuseppe Pisanu (EU Council's President, Minister of Interior of Italy). This was the first time that the President of the European Council has participated in the SF meeting. The key points of the meeting were:
The ministers agreed that the SF would support the neighbours of Austria to accept the Schengen-System, this way a double safe zone would unfold which provides Austria more security. Notwithstanding Austria was highly interested in gradually moving the Schengen border to the external border of the EU. Pisanu insisted on the main issues of the Italian presidency in the field of internal security: border control, migration, and asylum, war on terrorism and organised crime. Each country should decide on its own the number of immigrants to be received. Better cooperation is needed with the transit countries. In the border control "common units" should be established, first in the "smallest and weakest" countries so that the change for the Schengen-System would be easier for the countries of East Europe and the Mediterranean. He urged a strict visa policy and compulsory stamping for tourists with visa-waiver. The unfounded asylum applications should be firmly refused. Common investigation teams should be established in the fight against organized crime, where the national police chiefs might have a leading role in order to support the Europol's strategic direction. A network of contact officers should be set up. Vitorino urged the establishment of a European Border Police for extreme situations, but the integrity of the external border should be provided by the national border patrol. The ministers of interior signed a "Common Statement on the regional cooperation in the frame of the expanded European Union". The statement is on the Schengen cooperation at the borders and the establishment of a European external border management. Austria and Slovenia signed an agreement on cooperation and improving security in the two countries, which ought to contribute to the preparation of opening their borders even before Slovenia's EU accession. Austria demanded a common European border protection for which the first step would be the common standards of education, equipment, participation of national border officers and the improvement of the national border services. This work is based on an Italian study which proposes a network of decentralised competences. Austria would take part in the education of the border officers and provides the core material for their studies and the financial and personal background as well. A permanent coordination office could be built in Austria. Giuseppe Pisanu, Rado Bohinc (Slovenia) and Ernst Strasser (Austria) signed a protocol on police co-operation in supervising state borders and preventing illegal migration
Austrian Presidency, 1st half year, 2004
26 January 2004, Vienna
At a meeting between the American Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Austrian interior minister Ernst Strasser, the Austrian minister used the opportunity to point out insofar the European security is concerned Austria's place as a bridge between the western and eastern European countries and their task to connect these states, especially the SF countries to the USA. He also talked about the goals of SF, like a "European police force" (the so-called Euro cops), the implementation of the Solana Paper, the West Balkan Strategy, the training workshop for air marshals, and the fight against drug trade in the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus, which are significant for transit to Austria. A future visit at SF meeting by a USA representative was also mentioned.Press Conference With U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft And Austrian Interior Minister Ernst Strasser
15 April 2004, Vienna
Interior ministers of 11 current (6 of them that time still future) members of the European Union met for informal talks to discuss common security and immigration issues during which Austria submitted a six-point security plan. Austria Interior Ministry spokesman Rudolf Gollia said the talks would take place in Vienna between the five largest EU states—Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain—and the six-nation Salzburg Group, comprising the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Austria itself. Austria's Interior Minister Ernst Strasser outlined six proposals to share information and coordinate measures taken to improve security in Europe, in the wake of the 11 March train bombings in Madrid in which killed 191 people. Strasser's six-point plan included access to a European finger-printing databank, exchanges of information about people seeking visas and about travellers, improved cooperation between Interpol and its European equivalent Europol, new biometric information in passports and standardised security at EU airports. After the Madrid attacks, Austria called for the establishment of a new intelligence service dubbed "a European CIA", but ran into opposition from France and Germany. The ministers also discussed the status of refugees which had just been harmonised by the EU despite criticism from aid and rights organisations.Agence France Presse. (15/04/2004). Interior ministers from current and future EU states to meet in Austria Friday. Agence France Presse. Paris
Czech Presidency, 2004 2nd half year
15–17 July 2004, Fuschl
The Austrian Interior Minister insisted on that the future EU Border Agency should be in one of the SF member countries and the financial burden of the external border protection should be divided among all EU states. Mr. Strasser was skeptical about the plans of the Dutch presidency on common EU border police. From the SF Slovenia, Poland and Hungary were competing for the seat of the border agency, along with Estonia and Malta. The above-mentioned points were included in the twelve points proposal which was to be filed at the JHA Council on 19 July. The participants agreed on an anti-terror package which eminently based on the cooperation of the police authorities and the improvement of the data exchange. The plans include a study on the use of the EURODAC databank for purposes fighting criminality and terror. It was agreed experts from the newcomers should be involved in developing the second generation Schengen Information System (SIS II) so as to secure technical uniformity. Simplified border regimes should be introduced on other internal borders such as already exist between Slovenia, Austria and Hungary. Quick completion of Europol's information infrastructure and a two-phase evaluation of the Schengen system (dividing the evaluated regions into chapters which would be temporarily closed, according to the rule that nothing can be closed without having discussed everything) were the main issues at the meeting, according to the Polish Ministry of Interior. The Polish minister presented a feasibility study on the implementation of a system of improved exchange of data with Europol through a network of liaison officers. In his opinion, a more co-ordinated and active communication between liaison officers from the countries of the Salzburg Forum is possible. He was also in favour of a quick completion of electronic infrastructure of Europol - EIS system, which will ensure a safe and undelayed communication between liaison officers residing in the Hague and the national contact points delegating them. He suggested preparing and signing a joint declaration on creating a "Network of Co-operation between Liaison Officers of the Salzburg Group" and forming a working group whose task would be to draw up detailed guidelines regulating co-operation within the framework of this initiative.5