Brussels, 06/01/2016 (Agence Europe) - Getting back to normal as soon as possible in order to preserve the Schengen freedom of movement area. This is the commitment made on Wednesday 6 January by the Danish Minister for immigration, integration and housing, Inger Stojberg, the Swedish minister for justice and migration, Morgan Johannson, and the Parliamentary representative of the German Home Affairs Ministry, Ole Schröder, who met the European Commissioner for Migration and Home Affairs, Dimitris Avramopoulos, in Brussels.
Commissioner Avramopoulos had invited the three to a meeting to assess the consequences of the decisions announced on 4 January by Sweden and Denmark to limit flows of migrants to their territory, whereby Sweden has asked transport companies to request proof of identity from all travellers from Denmark, a recent legislative proposal which the Commission is currently examining.
Denmark, in turn, announced that it was bringing back temporary controls on the German border to prevent - according to the government - refugees from arriving in Denmark in large numbers and getting stuck there.
“We all agreed that Schengen must be protected, not just for the citizens but for the economy as well”, Avramopoulos commented after the two-hour meeting of the four figures, explaining that the exceptional measures decided upon by these countries need to be kept “to a minimum” and that the “return to normal” must begin as soon as possible. The Commissioner argued that this situation shows once again the member states must respect European rules on asylum and, in particular, that they must implement relocation decisions, which would allow these situations to be avoided.
The Danish Minister said that the meeting had given her the opportunity to explain to the Commission the government's decision to bring back these border controls. “We are going to be assessing the situation on an hourly basis”, she explained, adding that for the time being, there were no plans to introduce identity checks of the kind practised by Sweden, but that these could be an option if necessary. The Minister justified her government's decision: “We don't want to be the final destination of thousands and thousands of asylum seekers”, Stojberg commented.
The Swedish minister agreed that the Schengen zone had been “beneficial to all”, but that the measures implemented had now become necessary. Reiterating that out of all the EU countries, Sweden receives the highest number of asylum seekers per head of population, Johannson said that it was “extremely important to have control of the situation in Sweden”. He went on to say that he agreed that these measures should not be in place for “any longer than they are needed”. In the last four months, Sweden has received 115,000 asylum seekers, 26,000 of whom were unaccompanied minors, the Minister said, which called for 1,000 school places to be created in four months, amongst other things.
Johannson, who will meet his Danish opposite number in Copenhagen at the end of the month, added that it is also important to set the refugee relocation system in place.
The German Secretary of State, Ole Schröder, said that Denmark had been open with Germany, informing Berlin of these measures in advance, in a telephone call from the Danish Prime Minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, to Angela Merkel. The German representative nonetheless called on all member states to observe European rules on asylum and also criticised the difficulties in implementing the relocation decisions. Schröder went on to emphasise Greece's responsibility in managing the external borders of the EU, particularly the border with Turkey, also explaining that the implementation of Eurodac, for the digital fingerprints of migrants, also leaves much to be desired.
The new European Commission proposals on transforming and reinforcing the agency Frontex, published in mid-December, aim to remedy precisely these issues, the Minister suggested shortly afterwards, with the aim of not waiting until the end of 2016.
According to a report published by the European Commission on 5 January, just 272 people, 82 from Greece and 190 from Italy, have so far been relocated out of the 106,000 people the member states undertook to share out between themselves over the first year of the mechanism. By the end of the second year, the member states are supposed to have relocated 160,000 people, by virtue of decisions they adopted in September.
As regards hotspots, just one of these is up and running in Greece, in Lesbos, and two in Italy (Lampedusa and Trapani). “We hope that another two can be operational very soon at the start of this year”, commented Tove Ernst, spokesperson to Commissioner Avramopoulos. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)