European Parliament would like more information about temporary Schengen internal border controls

Brussels, 09/02/2017 (Agence Europe) – MEPs at the European Parliament civil liberties committee have called for more information about internal border controls in the Schengen area. This call was made during a debate on the decision to introduce a three month extension for controls carried out by five countries, including four member states, on Thursday 9 February. On Wednesday, the Council of the EU ratified this extension (see EUROPE 11720).

MEPs, such as Carlos Coelho (EPP, Portugal), wanted to know how these controls carried out by Germany, Austria, Sweden, Denmark and Norway, would be applied on their portions of the borders and what would the result of them be. He also wanted to know what the economic impact would be and enquired “Only the Commission had access to this data. It will now be up to the Commission and the Council but how many controls will there be in these countries? How many illegal migrants have been stopped? Do these controls target everybody?”

The Commission forwarded the request made by Mr Coelho to the Council. The representative from the Commission said that “this demand is entirely legitimate” but that it was not up to the Commission to provide an answer to it.

Mr Coelho pointed out, however, that several studies existed on the economic impacts. According to the Commission analyses, these controls could cost up to “€8 billion year” and affect the transport and tourism sectors, as well as even cross-border workers. Nonetheless, these controls are currently being carried out on certain portions of the borders and their entire economic impact is not yet known.

MEPs and Commission representatives, as well as the Maltese Presidency, pointed out that the Schengen area should return to normal as soon as possible. The Commission, however, said that this extension in the controls (the second since October 2016) Was justified by the fact that the situation was still not completely under control. Germany has already said that is the end of this new three-month period, I would like to introduce another reason other than migration for renewing its border measures, namely, terrorism. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)

https://www.agenceurope.info/pub/index.php?numPub=11722&pubType=1&numArticle=7&langage=en