French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday 5 November that he was in favour of “an in-depth reform of the Schengen area”, in particular to better control the EU’s “external borders”, Reuters reported.
The French President was on a trip to the French-Spanish border to announce additional controls at the French internal borders in the wake of the terrorist attacks, including the one in Nice, perpetrated by a Tunisian national who entered France after arriving in Lampedusa in September.
The President indicated that he would make proposals to this effect at the December European Summit. A meeting of EU Home Affairs Ministers on 13 November will also have a discussion on terrorism.
Notwithstanding, the Commission has already planned to present new proposals on the Schengen area at the beginning of 2021. The project to review the functioning of Schengen, which was announced last spring as a possible part of the Pact on Migration and Asylum - presented in September and finally postponed until 2021 - was, however, initially linked to the pandemic and the chaos created in March at the internal borders, when the States had unilaterally re-established controls.
It should be noted that Sweden also announced, on 5 November, new controls at its internal borders linked to the security situation, which will be extended until May 2021.
Statement in the aftermath of the attacks in Vienna
The Interior Ministers of Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Denmark also held virtual talks on 5 November on the subject of security. They adopted a joint declaration condemning the attack on 2 November, which left four people dead.
They also call for increased transparency in the EU on the “financing of national civil and religious organisations negatively impacting our society”. It is also necessary to work on the exchange of information on foreign fighters and on the phenomenon of ‘home-grown’ radicalisation, i.e. among nationals.
Link to the declaration: https://bit.ly/32gKcQk (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)