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EP alarmed by effects of Schengen border controls returning

Xinhua, May 12, 2016 Adjust font size:

Members of European Parliament (MEPs) on Wednesday expressed their concerns regarding the consequences of the reestablishing of controls on internal borders of the European Union (EU) for the future of the Schengen zone and called for the reinforcement of external borders.

Discussing the issue in the presence of Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European Commissioner responsible for migration and internal affairs, the majority of MEPs considered that the reestablishing of internal border checks in the Schengen zone threatened "one of the greatest and most tangible achievements of the European project."

The principle of free circulation of persons, considered as the keystone of the European structure, has been put under stress since the arrival of a flow of refugees, the majority Syrian, to which several European states responded with a closure of their borders internal to the EU.

Since the autumn of 2015, many member states of the Schengen zone, which is made up of 22 out of 28 EU nations as well as four exterior countries, including Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Lichtenstein, have reinforced their border controls or built border fences.

In order to save the Schengen agreements on free circulation within the EU, it is necessary to "secure" its external borders, judged many MEPs, who gathered for a plenary session in Strasbourg.

Meanwhile, within the ranks of state sovereignty advocates, others called as usual for the end of Schengen.

In the Strasbourg hemicycle, many MEPs warned against the costs that these internal border controls incur, especially for the transport and tourism sectors.

Voices were also raised to please for the respect of the proportionality of current controls and to ask that they be lifted quickly.

These controls on the borders are "exceptional and temporary," affirmed Avramopoulos to the MEPs, while specifying that the objective was to lift controls between now and, at the latest, the end of the year.

Avramopoulos announced elsewhere during the plenary session that the European Council should approve, on Thursday, the recommendation of the European Commission proposing the extension of the "proportional controls" on internal borders in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Denmark and Norway for a period of six months (a duration which can be renewed, no more than three times, and for a maximum of two years).

The case of France, where the state of emergency decreed after deadly attacks in Paris has been extended, will be considered separately. Endit