{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/eu-decision-2006-758/annex-1/division-n1",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/eu-decision-2006-758/annex-1/division-n1.json",
  "legislation": "eudn/2006/758",
  "legislation_title": "Commission Decision of 22 September 2006 on amending the Sirene Manual (2006/758/EC)",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/eu-decision-2006-758",
  "path": "annex/1/division/n1",
  "kind": "division",
  "number": null,
  "heading": "INTRODUCTION",
  "text": "On 14 June 1985, five countries (The Kingdom of Belgium, The Federal Republic of Germany, The French Republic, The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and The Kingdom of the Netherlands) signed an agreement at Schengen, a small town in Luxembourg, with a view to enabling ‘… all nationals of the Member States to cross internal borders freely …’ and to enable the ‘free circulation of goods and services’.\nOne of the conditions for applying this agreement was that abolishing internal borders should not jeopardise State security. This means that all of the territories of the Member States have to be protected.\nSeveral specialised groups were empowered to study practical measures so as to avoid security shortcomings once the agreement was brought into force.\nThe practical outcome of this work can be found in two documents, one technical (the feasibility study), and the other legal (the Convention).\nThe feasibility study, put to the Ministers and Secretaries of State of the five signatory countries to the Agreement in November 1988, lays down the broad technical principles for setting up the Schengen Information System (SIS).\nThe study not only sets out the structure of the information system, but also gives the essential specifications on the way it is to be organised to ensure it functions properly. This structure has been given the name ‘Sirene’, which is an acronym of the definition of the structure in English: Supplementary Information REquest at the National Entries.\nThis is a summary description of a procedure for transmitting the supplementary information required by an end-user for further action when the SIS has been consulted and a hit established.\nThe five founding countries signed the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement on 19 June 1990, and were later joined by Italy on 27 November 1990, Spain and Portugal on 25 June 1991, Greece on 6 November 1992, Austria on 28 April 1995 and by Denmark, Sweden and Finland on 19 December 1996. The Convention lays down all of the legal rules that are binding on all of the Member States. Norway and Iceland also concluded a Cooperation Agreement with the Member States on 19 December 1996.\nThe Schengen acquis — Convention was incorporated into the legal framework of the European Union by means of protocols attached to the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1999. A Council Decision was adopted on 12 May 1999 determining in conformity with the relevant provisions of the Treaty establishing the European Community and the Treaty on European Union, the legal basis for each of the provisions or decisions which constitute the Schengen acquis.\nThe common procedures and rules for cooperation between the partners are also detailed. Title IV focuses exclusively on the Schengen Information System.\nThe Schengen Information System (SIS) should provide the authorities responsible for:\n(a) border controls;\n(b) carrying out and coordinating the other police and customs checks within the country;\n(c) issuing visas, residence permits and for administrative matters relating to aliens;\naccess to alerts on persons, vehicles and objects, by means of an automated consultation procedure.\nThe SIS is made up of two separate components: one is the central system, and the other is the national systems (one for each country). The SIS operates on the principle that the national systems cannot exchange computerised data directly between themselves, but instead only via the central system (C.SIS).\nIt should, nonetheless, be possible for the Member States to exchange the supplementary information required for implementing certain provisions foreseen under the Convention, and for the SIS to function properly, either on a bilateral or multi-lateral basis.\nIf each National Schengen Information System (N.SIS) is to meet the operating constraints set out in the feasibility study and the Convention, it must therefore avail itself of this supplementary information which is indispensable for using the Sirene computer system.\nThis is the technical operational service that will be used and will be responsible for transmitting all supplementary information requests at the National Entries.",
  "extent": "E+W+S+N.I.",
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [
    {
      "type": "footnote",
      "label": "f1",
      "text": "OJ L 239, 22.9.2000, p. 19."
    }
  ],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eudn/2006/758/annex/1/division/n1",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-11-01T15:17:25.903240+00:00"
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
}