EU's
Schengen members urged to lift border checks to save passport-free
zone
European
commission says that while external borders need strengthening,
collapse of free movement zone could damage business and deter
tourists
Jennifer Rankin in
Brussels
Wednesday 2 March
2016 06.00 GMT
European Union
countries are being urged to lift internal border controls before the
end of the year, to save the “crowning achievement” of the
passport-free travel zone from total collapse, according to a draft
report by the European commission.
Walls, fences and
border checks have returned across Europe as the EU struggles to cope
with the biggest inflow of refugees since the end of the second world
war. Since September 2015, eight countries in the 26-nation
passport-free Schengen zone have re-instated border checks.
These controls
“place into question the proper functioning of the Schengen area of
free movement”, according to the draft report seen by the Guardian,
which will be published on Friday. “It is now time for member
states to pull together in the common interest to safeguard one of
the union’s crowning achievements.”
The passport-free
travel zone, which stretches from Iceland to Greece but does not
include the UK or Ireland, has been under unprecedented pressure; its
collapse could unravel decades of European integration.
The commission wants
member states to lift border controls “as quickly as possible”
and with “a clear target date of November 2016”. But Brussels
also wants tighter control of the EU’s external border and will
repeat warnings that Greece could be kicked out of Schengen if it
fails to improve border management by May.
The action plan has
been drawn up ahead of an emergency EU-Turkey summit on 7 March, when
the EU will call on Ankara to do more to stem the flow of refugees as
part of its part of a €3bn (£2.4bn) deal agreed last year.
Turkey, which is
housing 2.5 million refugees, has rejected accusations that it is not
doing enough. Senior Turkish officials have described European plans
to relocate thousands of refugees a year directly from Turkey, in
return for tighter border controls, as unworkable.
As this latest EU
plan underscores, the thinking in Brussels remains based on a hope
that joint work with Turkey “should lead to a rapid decrease” in
people arriving from Greece. That will be a tall order, with an
average of 2,000 refugees landing on Greece’s shores each day, a
number that is expected to rise over the warmer spring and summer
months.
Greece is under
growing pressure to hand over management of its borders to the EU, as
it struggles to cope with the numbers. According to this latest plan,
EU authorities will carry out an inspection of Greece’s borders in
mid April to determine whether controls are adequate, with a final
decision on Greece’s place in Schengen to be taken in May.
The EU executive
also reaffirms its intention to overhaul rules governing asylum
claims. Under the current rules, known as the Dublin system, asylum
seekers have to lodge their claim in the first country they enter.
The Dublin regime was effectively finished last year when the
chancellor, Angela Merkel, opened Germany’s borders to any Syrian
who wanted to claim asylum there, regardless of where they arrived in
the EU.
In mid-March the
commission will set out a list of options for reforming EU asylum
policy. The favoured idea is a permanent system of relocation, where
refugees are shared out around the union, depending on the wealth and
size of a country.
Recent efforts at
relocating refugees from overwhelmed Greece and Italy have not set an
encouraging precedent: out of a plan to resettle 160,000 refugees
only 629 refugees have been found a new home.
One EU source
stressed that no decisions on a replacement for Dublin had been
taken. “There are lots of ways to go, but it doesn’t necessarily
mean a fundamental change in the principles of Dublin,” the source
said, referring to the obligation to claim asylum in the first
country of arrival.
The UN refugee
agency on Tuesday urged Europe to prioritise its relocation plans, as
it reported that the continent stood “on the cusp of a largely
self-induced humanitarian crisis”
As well as the usual
appeals to European solidarity, Brussels hopes to convince member
states that the disappearance of the border-free Schengen zone has a
high economic price.
The report warns
that reimposing national border controls will damage business and
deter tourists, especially high-spending Asian tourists, who will
restrict their itinerary to “all but the most popular EU
destinations”.
Restoring internal
border controls would result in immediate costs of up to €18bn a
year or 0.13% of the annual output of the Schengen area, it says. But
that bill is expected to rise, with businesses and the tourist
industry expected to lose billions more.
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