Brussels, 02/05/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 4 May the College of Commissioners will discuss the extension of internal border controls for certain Schengen member countries.
The Commission is expected to decide on whether to extend these controls for a six-month period and subsequently activate Article 26 of the Schengen Border Code, in compliance with its roadmap published on 4 March, which seeks to return to normal Schengen operations by the end of November at the latest.
Different European sources explained that the European Commission is expected to make this decision before 12 May. On this day, the member states concerned, particularly Germany, will have exhausted all the other possibilities of extending internal border controls. The idea is to help the Schengen area function normally again by the end of November, whilst in theory, Article 26 well allow member states to extend these controls for a period up to 2 years or May 2018.
On Wednesday, the Commission will assess the progress made by Greece to rectify the shortcomings observed at its external borders at the end of 2015. Athens also received 50 Council of EU recommendations to be fulfilled by the middle of February.
On 2 May, the Ministers of the Interior for five member states (Denmark, Austria, Germany, France and Sweden) wrote to the Commission and the Dutch Presidency of the Council of the EU calling for an extension to these internal border control measures. The ministers believe that although the situation has significantly slowed down along the Balkans route, shortcomings persist at external borders and there are still a large number of migrants in Greece. The terrorist attacks on 13 November and 22 March in the Belgian capital, also demonstrated that terrorists were exploiting weaknesses in border controls, explained the ministers in their letter. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)