The European Parliament is suspending cooperation and negotiations with the Danish EU presidency in some 10 areas of legal affairs following a Council decision to side-line the European Parliament on parts of a new agreement on the borderless Schengen cooperation.

“The four main party groups are currently looking at what acts this involves in order to produce a list of the issues to block,” Rohde tells politiken.dk.

Rohde added that the official list and statement of the hiatus were to be announced on Thursday. He said that the interruption in cooperation with the rotating EU presidency would continue into Cyprus’ presidential term which begins on July 1, unless the decision was changed.

The European Parliament President said the situation was unique.

“I have been a Member of Parliament for 18 years and I have never seen Parliament as united in its criticism of another institution as we see today,” says European Parliament President Martin Shulz.

“It was absolutely unnecessary to provoke Parliament in that way. One of the EU legislation’s two chambers unilaterally decides to close out the other. This is a very serious provocation – something a country with Denmark’s parliamentary tradition should understand,” Shulz adds.

At issue is the unanimous decision of the 27 home affairs ministers on 7 June in Luxembourg to change the legal basis for evaluating the working of the Schengen visa-free area. Under the new rules, controls regarding the EU’s outer borders can be carried by the Council, without any parliamentary debate.

The suspension of cooperation comes following angry scenes yesterday in the European Parliament when Denmark’s Justice Minister Morten Bødskov presented his views on the ministerial Council decision and incurred the wrath of MEPs.

Almost all political groups within Parliament reacted strongly, using words such as ‘undemocratic’, ‘right-wing’, ‘populist’ and ‘shame’.

Following the debate, Bødskov said the reactions in Parliament had been expected, but that the decision had been misunderstood.

“This about two things; better control of the outer borders and that the responsibility for national borders rests with individual member countries,” Bødskov said.

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