Germany imposes border checks
September 15th, 2015As Germany reintroduces restrictions on its border with Austria to cope with the migrant influx, a centrist analyst wonders if free movement within the Schengen Zone can be sustained.
In Mandiner, Ákos Gergely Balogh wonders if the temporary reinstatement of border controls in Germany following similar steps by Austria and Denmark marks the end of a borderless European Union. The moderate blogger suspects that free movement within the EU can only be sustained if the external borders of the EU are fortified. The EU should immediately decide about a joint border patrol authority. A new system needs to be established too, and decisions on asylum applications need to be reached speedily, Balogh recommends. The EU should also finance the opening of refugee centres in North Africa and the Middle East, he adds. He also suggests that before fortifying the EU’s borders, Bulgaria and Romania should be admitted to the Schengen Zone. Serbia’s southern frontiers could also be included into the common border line. This, Balogh notes, would take off the burden from Hungary’s shoulders and would render the fence separating Hungarians in Serbia from Hungary obsolete, Balogh muses.