The EU Member States’ interior ministers will discuss the traffic situation in the Schengen area during an informal teleconference on the morning of Tuesday 28 April, as fifteen or so Member States have re-instated checks at the internal borders of the Schengen area as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Also on the agenda for this meeting are the measures put in place to close the external borders until 15 May (restricting arrivals into the EU from non-Member States), apps for tracing citizens, again as part of the response to Covid-19, and flexibility in asylum and migration rules.
Another item on their agenda will be a follow-up on the measures taken to support Greece after the crisis with Turkey at the end of February. Also on the agenda will be the programme for relocating minors from Greek camps, which began operations with the arrival of young migrants in Luxembourg and Germany.
However, the majority of the discussion will be devoted to the gradual coordinated lifting of internal border controls. A source has explained that ministers will discuss a strategy based on three criteria: - convergence of the trajectory of the epidemic within the same areas, based on an ECDC analysis; - convergence of ‘barrier’ measures on both sides of a border; - the distinction between essential and non-essential movements in border crossings. Ministers will be sounded out on these issues and on this methodology; the Commission might be asked to produce a document to facilitate this process.
At this stage, a precise timetable for the partial lifting of internal controls has not been put forward. The Commission briefly referred to this gradual lifting of internal border controls in its strategy for lifting the lockdown published on 15 April (see EUROPE 12467/2). The Commission will be represented at this meeting by Ylva Johansson, the Commissioner for Home Affairs. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)