More EU border controls reinstated to check flow of refugees
Germany informed the European Commission it will extend its border controls first imposed in mid- September, and also intends using the Dublin system and send back refugees to the country where they first entered the EU, other than Greece.
This is expected to raise tensions especially if they send them back to Hungary that has introduced legislation criminalising refugees entering the country. Slovenia is also under pressure while many refugees’ first EU country after Greece is Bulgaria.
Sweden, which has proportionately taken more refugees than any other EU country, has also notified Brussels it will have border controls at selected ports and on the Oresund Bridge with Denmark because the influx “constitutes a serious threat to internal order and public policy”.
Austria’s border controls remain in place, while Slovenia and Hungary lifted theirs towards the end of October after about 10 days.
The latest decisions by Germany and Sweden follows a summit in the Maltese capital, Valletta, with African leaders designed to have them control the flow across the Mediterranean.
However the €1.8bn trust fund for African countries fell far short as member states failed to contribute sufficiently, while the agreement to relocate 160,000 refugees from Italy and Greece is happening so slowly Commission president Jean Claude Juncker said it would take until 2101 to accomplish.
Plans to reinforce the returns policy failed, however, when EU leaders watered down their plans and agreed with their African counterparts that the return of failed asylum seekers would be on a voluntary basis.
Many African migrants are considered to be economic rather than needing international protection.
While some hardliners view the outcome of the EU-Africa summit as disappointing, the International Migrant Organisation (IOM) welcomed the change in direction with the inclusion in the Valletta summit declaration that voluntary rather than forced return was the preferred option.
IOM’s director general and former US ambassador William Lacy Swing said: “The Malta decisions are a promising start on what will be a long road. They focus on a series of measures aimed at tackling the root causes of migration, which we very much welcome.”
However, the threat to the Schengen area was acknowledged by Donal Tusk, who chaired the leaders’ summit. “Saving Schengen is a race against time. And we are determined to win that race”, he said.
