Migrant crisis: EU plan to scrap free travel zone
THE European Union’s borderfree travel zone could be suspended for two years under emergency plans in response to the migrant crisis.
Leaked documents show EU leaders are planning to bring back checkpoints across the continent.
The radical change, which will allow countries to restore controls for two years rather than the six months currently permitted, will be debated by interior ministers in Brussels tomorrow.
Countries in the Schengen zone are pushing for Greece to be suspended from the scheme because of its failure to manage the vast numbers of people coming in. At least two of the terrorists involved in the Paris attacks came into Europe through the island of Leros posing as refugees.
Final decisions on the future of Schen
‘The moment of truth’
gen are expected to be made at a summit of all EU leaders later this month. Britain is not a part of the 26-nation area.
Greece has been the main point of entry into the EU for about 700,000 migrants and refugees this year.
The country’s migration minister Yannis Mouzalas said yesterday: ‘As we’ve repeatedly stated and as Europe has belatedly understood, Greece is the start of the corridor. The door is in Turkey. Therefore if the flows are not controlled in Turkey, from the coast of Turkey, it is impossible to control the flows from Greece or any other European Union member.’
An EU official said: ‘We are working to maintain Schengen and make it work properly. The moment of truth will be the December European Council.’
Hungary’s prime minister yesterday claimed Germany has secretly agreed a pact with Turkey to bring up to half a million of its refugees to the EU.
Viktor Orban said a similar idea was rejected by EU leaders but that ‘the cat will be out of the bag’ and the scheme will be announced in Berlin as soon as this week.
European Commission first vicepresident Frans Timmermans yesterday dismissed the idea of a secret pact as ‘nonsense’.
It came as a senior EU official said migrants coming into Europe should be detained for 18 months so they can be properly screened to stop terrorists getting in. European Council president Donald Tusk broke ranks to denounce German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s opendoor policy as ‘dangerous’.
The former Polish prime minister said public confidence would be restored only if the EU took control with stringent checks at its borders. Mr Tusk also scoffed at claims that most of those arriving into Europe were Syrian refugees.
He said: ‘Sorry, but it is something like a justification that we have refugees [who are] only Syrian and that’s why we have to be as open as today. It’s not true. Syrians are only 28 to 30 per cent of the influx. Seventy per cent of them are [irregular] migrants. This is why we need more effective controls. It’s obvious.
‘If you want to screen migrants and refugees, you need more time than only one minute to fingerprint them. In European law, we have this rule of 18 months as the time for screening we need. You can and you should retain migrants [until screening is completed].’