EU looking at reintroducing national border controls

The European Union's executive has proposed allowing the reintroduction of national border controls in exceptional circumstances, even though the development of a "borderless" continent had long been hailed as a prime EU achievement.
The EU Commission made the proposal Wednesday after France and Italy insisted on action to revamp the so-called Schengen system, which allows for unfettered travel across many European borders for citizens, but also for illegal immigrants.
EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem said that "it may also be necessary to foresee the temporary reintroduction of limited internal border controls under very exceptional circumstances."
Malmstroem said one reason for such border checks could be when "part of the external border comes under heavy unexpected pressure" but she did not say if that would include the situation in Italy, which has recently received more than 25,000 illegal immigrants, mostly from Tunisia.
The Commission's proposal will now be submitted to a special meeting of EU interior ministers on May 12 and a meeting of EU government leaders June 24.
Touching on such a cornerstone of EU policy already raised objections, especially within the European Parliament, and among member states.
"Greece believes that freedom of movement within the Schengen Area must be jealously preserved, for it is the most fundamental pylon of European unification," said Greek Citizens Protection Minister Christos Papoutsis.
Malmstroem insisted that even though border controls may be temporarily coming back, it would not become the norm over the next years.
"The free movement of people across European borders is a major achievement which must not be reversed," she said. Part of her proposal also centred on how the whole of the EU should help nations at the bloc's external borders such as Italy.
"We should not leave it only up to the member states at our external borders to deal with extraordinary migratory situations," Malmstroem said.
The borderless Europe started to become unstuck last month when the Italian government complained about the thousands of illegal immigrants from Tunisia flooding into the country. When other EU nations didn't help Italy out, Rome piled on the pressure and provided thousands of Tunisians with travel documents to move to neighbouring France and beyond.
In retaliation, France beefed up controls close to Italy's border and send many back. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi then came up with a compromise proposal to revamp the Schengen system, including the reintroduction of border controls.

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