Luxembourg, 09/06/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 9 June 2011, EU27 interior ministers continued their discussions about tightening the Schengen rules by restoring internal border controls on a temporary basis and as a last resort in the event of floods of would-be immigrants or immigrants seeping through border controls of countries on the EU's external borders. It is expected that heads of state would be expected to make any actual decisions and, at their meeting on 24 June 2011, the politicians are likely to send a strong political message to the European Commission to get it to prepare draft legislation to this effect.
On Thursday, all the ministers backed a tightening of the rules and a special pilot scheme. France says this could be done by the JHA Council itself, explained French politician Claude Guéant. How any reintroduction of border controls might operate in practice has not been decided and they explain in their conclusions document that this option had been discussed in a report published by the Commission on 4 May 2011 and they had asked the Commission to draw up proposals. Points of view differ. Germany believes the mechanism for reintroducing border controls should be subject to intergovernmental decision while France sees it as a mid-way decision, i.e. with “Community” involvement. (S.P./transl.fl)