The decision by EU governments to change the legal basis for evaluating the functioning of the Schengen visa-free travel agreement might be brought to the European Court of Justice. MEPs at the Civil Liberties Committee voted last 11 of June to strongly object to Council decision and consider legal action. The Committee also stood by its amendments to two draft laws on the temporary reimposition of internal border controls and the evaluation mechanism.

MEPs at the Civil Liberties Committee opposed to Council decision on a general approach on the amendments of Schengen agreement reached on 8 of June. According to MEPs, reimposing border checks must remain an exceptional, last-resort measure. Furthermore, they reiterated that migration and the crossing of external borders by a large number of third-country nationals should not per se be considered a threat to public policy or internal security.

The general approach reached by EU Justice and Home Affairs ministers included to change the legal basis of the rules governing the evaluation of Schengen from Article 77 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU to Article 70. This means that Parliament's could no longer co-decide on these arrangements, but instead merely be informed of the Member States' decisions. MEPs opposed because the Parliament and the Commission would be prevented from exercising their supervisory role on behalf of citizens, and Member States would be free to ignore any concerns that they put forward. Furthermore, the decision was taken while negotiations with the other EU institutions were still in progress.

Civil Liberties Committee agreed that several scenarios that might justify reimposing checks: in the event of a serious and imminent threat to public order or internal security, checks could be reimposed for up to six months. In the event of an emergency requiring immediate action, a Member State may reimpose checks, on its own initiative, for up to ten days, to be prolonged should the threat persist. In addition, the Schengen evaluation mechanism would step up the frequency of on-the-spot inspections and introduce unannounced visits by Commission-led teams to verify that Member States are not imposing internal border checks in breach of Schengen rules.