Following the decision of the Council in June 2012 to change the legal basis and not to include the European Parliament in co-decision on the Schengen evaluation mechanism, the Conference of Presidents decided to freeze five legislative dossiers until a solution could be found.
Even if this agreement is not exactly what the European Parliament would have liked, it can be considered a satisfactory result and is a major achievement for Schengen and for freedom of movement. This agreement transforms Schengen from being a system based merely on intergovernmental co-operation to a truly European system where the Commission will play a key role in ensuring that it functions well and the European Parliament will provide democratic scrutiny.