EU to end internal Schengen border controls by November

Schengen is one of the greatest achievements of the European project, says EU home affairs commissioner

BRUSSELS: EU countries that imposed border controls inside the passport-free Schengen area because of the migrant crisis should end them by November, the European Commission said on Tuesday.

Austria, Denmark, Germany, Sweden and non-EU Norway, which introduced the ID checks in 2015, would be allowed one final six-month extension, EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said.

"The time has come to take the last concrete steps to gradually return to a normal functioning of the Schengen area," he said of the passport-free area named after a town in Luxembourg and was to be a symbol of free movement in the bloc.

"Schengen is one of the greatest achievements of the European project. We must do everything to ... protect it," Avramopoulos said in a speech.

More than a million people sought asylum in Europe's rich north in 2015, mostly in Germany but also in large numbers in Sweden, straining the capacity of countries to cope.



A contentious deal with Turkey to stop Syrian refugees from reaching Greece and the overland route to Germany, in return for EU funds, has reduced flows to a trickle, although thousands of
migrants still try to reach Europe from Libya via sea routes.

The Swedish government said on Tuesday it would remove ID
checks on journeys from Denmark into Sweden. However, its policy was not immediately clear after it said it would also maintain surveillance cameras and x-raying vehicles passing over the border.

Germany has argued it needs the controls despite the fall in
migrants coming through Greece and the Western Balkans to combat the threat of militancy in Europe.



Under EU rules, the countries were allowed to impose the emergency controls for up to two years in September 2015.

The EU executive approved six-month extensions of controls
at the German-Austrian border, at Austria's frontiers with
Slovenia and Hungary and at Danish, Swedish and Norwegian
borders. Norway is a member of Schengen but not the EU.

EU governments must now agree to the recommendations.