Sopot, 18/07/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 18 July, the EU27 member states turned away from the French idea of allowing borders to be temporarily closed in the event of a mass immigration crisis within the Schengen area. EU interior and justice ministers were meeting in Sopot, on the outskirts of Gdansk (Poland), where they took a different view from France. A close source said that France is isolated and none of the other countries want to follow its line of thought.
The French European minister, Jean Leonetti, who attended the meeting, called for countries to be given the option of closing down their borders if a flood of immigrants were to arrive. Leonetti argued that this would strengthen, rather than damage, the fundamentals of Schengen, and not changing Schengen would weaken it. He said France wanted more Schengen, not less.
This view was not shared by the other member states, which focused on the Schengen assessment mechanism and improvement of the system by Frontex. The Spanish interior minister, Antonio Camacho Vizcaino, said that the EU already had everything needed to monitor its borders, a view shared by Germany's interior minister, Hans-Peter Friedrich, who said that the key to Schengen was controlling its external borders because Schengen works very well if external borders work properly.
The other countries decided not to follow France's suggestion. Instead, the member states are considering making use of Articles 70 and 77 of the Lisbon Tracy to veto the French idea and veto any other proposal that would lead to the reintroduction of border controls. Denmark recently decided without consultation to introduce border controls for goods along its borders with Sweden and Germany, a move that generated huge tension within the EU. Denmark did not intervene in the debate on Schengen at Sopot on Monday and a source said that nobody had brought up the Danish issue. (Cor./transl.fl)