HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"L 166/22
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
25.6.2011
DECISIONS
COUNCIL DECISION
of 9 June 2011
amending the Schengen consultation network (technical specifications)
(2011/369/EU)
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,
(4) This
Decision
constitutes
a
development
of
the
provisions of the Schengen acquis in which the United
Kingdom does not take part, in accordance with Council
Having regard to Council Regulation (EC) No 789/2001 of
Decision 2000/365/EC of 29 May 2000 concerning the
24 April 2001 reserving to the Council implementing powers
request of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
with regard to certain detailed provisions and practical
Northern Ireland to take part in some of the provisions
procedures for examining visa applications (
of the Schengen acquis ( 4 ); the United Kingdom is

1 ), and in particular
Article 1(2) thereof,
therefore not taking part in its adoption and is not
bound by it or subject to its application.
Having regard to the initiative by the Kingdom of Belgium,
(5) This
Decision
constitutes
a
development
of
the
provisions of the Schengen acquis in which Ireland does
Whereas:
not take part, in accordance with Council Decision
2002/192/EC of 28 February 2002 concerning Ireland’s
request to take part in some of the provisions of the
Schengen acquis ( 5 ); Ireland is therefore not taking part
(1) The
Schengen
consultation
network
(technical
specifi
in its adoption and is not bound by it or subject to its
cations) has been established to allow consultation
application.
between the central authorities of the Member States in
relation to visa applications submitted by nationals from
certain third countries.
(6)
In accordance with Articles 1 and 2 of Protocol (No 22)
on the position of Denmark, annexed to the Treaty on
(2) The
heading
formats
of
the
forms
transmitted
with
a
European Union and to the Treaty on the Functioning of
view to the consultation between Member States should
the European Union, Denmark is not taking part in the
be amended and, with certain exceptions, the updated list
adoption of this Decision and is not bound by it or
of three-letter codes of the International Civil Aviation
subject to its application. Given that this Decision
Organisation (ICAO) (‘three-letter codes (ICAO)’) for
builds upon the Schengen acquis, Denmark shall, in
States, entities, territories, nationalities and organisations
accordance with Article 4 of that Protocol, decide
should be used in the framework of that consultation in
within a period of 6 months after the Council has
line with the list established by Council Regulation (EC)
decided on this Decision whether it will implement it
No 539/2001 of 15 March 2001 listing the third
in its national law.
countries whose nationals must be in possession of
visas when crossing the external borders and those
whose nationals are exempt from that requirement ( 2 ).
The use of the three-letter codes (ICAO) with certain
exceptions does not affect and is without prejudice to
(7) As
regards
Iceland
and
Norway,
this
Decision
constitutes
Member States’ competence with regard to the recog
a development of the provisions of the Schengen acquis
nition or non-recognition of States or entities. The
within the meaning of the Agreement concluded by the
codes set up for the Former Yugoslav Republic of
Council of the European Union and the Republic of
Macedonia and Kosovo (
Iceland and the Kingdom of Norway concerning the

3 ) are only for the purpose of
VISION consultation.
latters’ association with the implementation, application
and development of the Schengen acquis ( 6 ) which fall
within the area referred to in Article 1, point A, of
Council Decision 1999/437/EC of 17 May 1999 on
(3) The
technical
specifications
of
the
Schengen
consultation
certain arrangements for the application of that
network (technical specifications) should be amended
Agreement ( 7 ).
accordingly.
( 4 ) OJ L 131, 1.6.2000, p. 43.
( 1 ) OJ L 116, 26.4.2001, p. 2.
( 5 ) OJ L 64, 7.3.2002, p. 20.
( 2 ) OJ L 81, 21.3.2001, p. 1.
( 6 ) OJ L 176, 10.7.1999, p. 36.
( 3 ) Under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999).
( 7 ) OJ L 176, 10.7.1999, p. 31.

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EN
25.6.2011 Official
Journal
of
the
European
Union L
166/23
(8) As
regards
Switzerland,
this
Decision
constitutes
a
devel
Article 46 of Regulation (EC) No 767/2008 of the
opment of the provisions of the Schengen acquis within
European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July
the meaning of the Agreement between the European
2008 concerning the Visa Information System (VIS)
Union, the European Community and the Swiss Confed
and the exchange of data between Member States on
eration on the Swiss Confederation’s association with the
short-stay visas (VIS Regulation) ( 6 ), the procedure set
implementation, application and development of the
out in Article 1(2) of Council Regulation (EC) No
Schengen acquis ( 1 ) which fall within the area referred
789/2001 should continue to apply, if necessary, for
to in Article 1, point A, of Decision 1999/437/EC read
the amendments of certain parts of the Schengen consul
in conjunction with Article 3 of Council Decision
tation network (technical specifications),
2008/146/EC ( 2 ).
HAS ADOPTED THIS DECISION:
(9) As
regards
Liechtenstein,
this
Decision
constitutes
a
development of the provisions of the Schengen acquis
within the meaning of the Protocol between the
Article 1
European Union, the European Community, the Swiss
Confederation and the Principality of Liechtenstein on
Parts 1, 2 and 3 of the Schengen consultation network
the accession of the Principality of Liechtenstein to the
(technical specifications) are hereby amended as set out in the
Agreement between the European Union, the European
Annexes I, II and III.
Community and the Swiss Confederation on the Swiss
Confederation’s association with the implementation,
application and development of the Schengen acquis (
Article 2

3 )
which fall within the area referred to in Article 1, point
This Decision shall enter into force on 9 June 2011.
A, of Decision 1999/437/EC read in conjunction with
Article 3 of Council Decision 2011/349/EU ( 4 ).
It shall apply from 10 July 2011.
(10) As
regards Cyprus, this Decision constitutes an act
building upon, or otherwise related to, the Schengen
acquis within the meaning of Article 3(2) of the 2003
Article 3
Act of Accession.
This Decision is addressed to the Member States in accordance
with the Treaties.
(11) This Decision constitutes an act building upon, or
otherwise related to, the Schengen acquis within the
meaning of Article 4(2) of the 2005 Act of Accession.
Done at Luxembourg, 9 June 2011.
(12) In
accordance
with
Article
58(4)
of
Regulation
(EC)
No
For the Council
810/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council
of 13 July 2009 establishing a Community Code on
The President
Visas (Visa Code) ( 5 ), until the date referred to in
PINTR S.
( 1 ) OJ L 53, 27.2.2008, p. 52.
( 2 ) OJ L 53, 27.2.2008, p. 1.
( 3 ) OJ L 160, 18.6.2011, p. 3.
( 4 ) OJ L 160, 18.6.2011, p. 1.
( 5 ) OJ L 243, 15.9.2009, p. 1.
( 6 ) OJ L 218, 13.8.2008, p. 60.

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L 166/24
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
25.6.2011
ANNEX I
Point 1.3 of Part 1 of the Schengen consultation network (technical specifications) is replaced by the following:
‘1.3. DEFINING MESSAGE CHARACTERISTICS
For every message to be sent via the network, the following structural characteristics should be met:
The ‘From’ item of the message contains the senders applications address.
For example:
From: vision@vision-mailer.nl
The ‘To’ item of the message contains the recipients application address.
For example:
To: vision@vision-mailer.de
Implementation tip: be aware that it is possible to make use of multiple recipients delimited by commas. But if the
application does so, on received FORMs R it has to determine the FORM R sender, because it will receive references
to identical message-identifiers (heading ‘000’). Sending separate messages to each partner State with different ‘000’
headings is less confusing.
The ‘Subject’ item of the message contains a ‘file number’ and a full stop (‘.’) followed by the form-type identifier
(Letter: ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘E’, ‘F’, ‘G’, ‘H’ or ‘R’). For the respective forms, the ‘file number’ equals the content of its heading:
‘001’ in FORM ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘F’, ‘G’, ‘H’ and the content of heading ‘048’ in a FORM E. For heading definitions see
2.1.2.
Examples:
Subject:AUT0000010106AJKT00.B
Subject:FRA2007022457471104.E
If a Member State receives a message with an incorrectly formulated subject, it has to discard that message without
processing it. If the problem persists it has to be solved bilaterally by the technical staff.
The mail body has to be structured as follows:
— ‘text/plain’ is used as the ‘Media Type’ or ‘Mime Type’ see RFC2046 (http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2046),
— ‘ISO-8859-15’ is used as the ‘charset’.
Hence in the ‘Header’ of every mail, the following line will appear:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset = ISO-8859-15.’.

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EN
25.6.2011 Official
Journal
of
the
European
Union L
166/25
ANNEX II
Point 2.2.1 of Part 2 of the Schengen consultation network (technical specifications) is replaced by the following:
‘2.2.1. Three-letter codes (ICAO)
Codes for States, entities, territories, nationalities and organisations as well as further designations for the VISION
consultation procedure.
Three-letter codes, as set out in ICAO Document 9303 on Machine-Readable Travel Documents, shall be used except
in the following cases:
1. for the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, XXG shall be used;
2. for Kosovo ( 1 ), XXD shall be used;
3. for the Federal Republic of Germany, DEU shall be used.
Two lists will be made available on CIRCA:
1. An ICAO-based code list ( 2 ): the latest version of the ICAO-based codes with the three exceptions mentioned
above to be used for VISION consultation. This list shall be used in line with the list established by Regulation
(EC) No 539/2001.
2. A special VISION code list: the limited list of special VISION three-letter codes for specific cases.
Both lists will contain, next to the appropriate three-letter codes to be used for VISION consultation ‘valid from’ and
‘valid until’-values for these codes:
— Valid-Until: Date from which the code becomes obsolete for VISION consultation,
— Valid-From: Date from which the code becomes applicable to be used for VISION consultation.
If ICAO-updates are detected by a Member State or the Commission, it will immediately notify the General
Secretariat of the Council. The ICAO-based code list will be updated by the Presidency as follows:
— new ICAO-codes shall be added with a ‘valid from’ date 30 days after publication of the updated list on CIRCA,
— for removed ICAO-codes the ‘valid until’ date shall be set 30 days after publication of the updated list on CIRCA
and shall be kept for archival purposes.
If, for technical reasons (e.g. old passports that are still valid), an expired ICAO-code has to be used further in the
VISION Consultation Network, or in general if, for technical reasons, a new three-letter code is deemed necessary,
this code shall be added to the special VISION code list after agreement in the Visa/VISION Working Party.
The General Secretariat of the Council shall notify Member States every time an updated list has been published on
CIRCA.
___________
( 1 ) Under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999).
( 2 ) A table containing the current ICAO-codes can be found at the ICAO web site.’.
ANNEX III
The last paragraph of point 3.2.5 of Part 3 of the Schengen consultation network (technical specifications) is deleted.

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