Cameron’s big chance to restore sovereignty

A SEA change is coming over Europe, as the continent’s leaders wake up to the truth that EU institutions just can’t cope with the tide of migrants sweeping in from Africa and the Middle East.

On Thursday, Germany retreated further from the once-sacred principle of open borders, with interior minister Thomas de Maiziere declaring he could ‘ not foresee a moment’ when the emergency frontier checks introduced in September would be lifted.

Yesterday, it was France’s turn to sound the alarm bell, as prime minister Manuel Valls warned, in apocalyptic language, that the European project itself was in ‘grave danger’ from the crisis. Now it emerges that EU ministers, hitherto guardians of the flame of ‘evercloser union’, will meet on Monday for talks on suspending the open-borders Schengen Agreement for two whole years, thereby restoring control of movement to nation states.

Indeed, the future of the EU superstate, already under intense pressure from the meltdown in the one-size-fits-all currency, looks more uncertain by the day.

In an excoriating interview, Mr Valls made no secret of his horror at Angela Merkel’s rash decision – reversed too late – to throw open Germany’s borders to all.

As he pointed out, Schengen meant the whole continent suffered from her folly, as word spread by smartphone that a welcome awaited in Europe. Indeed, the German leader bears heavy responsibility for encouraging so many to risk the perilous sea crossing, which yesterday cost yet more lives.

Nor did Mr Valls shrink from reminding her of the mass sex attacks in Cologne on New Year’s Eve, for which asylum seekers were held chiefly to blame.

Of course, France has its own reasons for fearing the influx to the EU – already running at 1,735 a day, while experts predict ten million will enter this year.

With Paris in shock after November’s terrorist attacks, the country’s economy is tanking and jobs are scarce, stoking fears of further inflaming racial tensions.

Hence France’s disgracefully cynical policy of luring migrants to the Channel coast, in the hope of dumping the problem on overcrowded Britain.

But as Mr Valls recognises, the only realistic answer is to hold back the tide at source. And that means strengthening controls at points of entry into the EU.

What he didn’t add is that there’s also an urgent need to review Europe’s human rights laws, which often make it impossible to deport asylum seekers. Indeed, this week a British immigration tribunal punched another hole in our porous borders by ruling that migrants in France had a right to family life in the UK.

As for David Cameron, to his credit he is resisting EU calls for Britain to accept a quota of some 90,000 a year, while insisting there should be no change in the rule that asylum seekers are the responsibility of the first safe country they reach.

But fighting to preserve the status quo is clearly not enough. So far his demands have been woefully unambitious.

With the EU in disarray, and a growing appetite among our partners for radical reform, this is his golden opportunity to beef up his negotiating stance and restore real power to Britain.

Almost two years before the referendum deadline, it is still not too late to secure a deal that even this paper could support.