Many Tunisian migrants have travelled from Italy to France – fuelling criticism of Schengen EU home affairs ministers are meeting to consider controversial proposals to change Europe’s 25-nation Schengen accord on passport-free travel.
Divisions have emerged over how best to handle the influx of migrants fleeing the turmoil in North Africa.
Italy and Malta, on the immigration frontline, are urging their EU partners to help them more.
Schengen allows for the temporary reimposition of border controls in special cases to ensure public order.
This week the European Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso, said such measures should be “exceptions” and “an absolute last resort”.
He said freedom of movement, enshrined by Schengen, was one of the EU’s essential foundations.
On the eve of the Brussels meeting, Denmark announced that it would reinstate control booths on its borders with Germany and Sweden within weeks.
Denmark will carry out random checks of cars and passports, deploying more customs officers and video surveillance to tackle cross-border crime, Finance Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen said.
Denmark, like the rest of Scandinavia, is a Schengen member and Mr Frederiksen insisted that the extra controls would be in line with the EU agreement.
The anti-immigration Danish People’s Party, a key ally of the government, had demanded the reimposition of border checks.
Populist parties elsewhere in Europe are making similar demands, amid widespread fears that migrant workers are taking advantage of Schengen at a time of economic hardship.
Tensions rose recently between France and Italy after Rome granted temporary residence permits to thousands of French-speaking Tunisians, many of whom then took trains to France.
EU officials say no concrete outcome is expected at Thursday’s meeting, but modifications to Schengen could be approved at a European summit next month.
Schengen, which dates back to 1995, abolished internal borders, enabling passport-free movement for EU citizens across most of Europe.
It also introduced common procedures for controlling the EU’s external borders.
On 4 May the European Commission urged the EU to step up co-operation to deal with new migration pressures in the southern Mediterranean. More than 25,000 Africans have sailed to Italy and Malta in small, overcrowded boats this year to escape the turmoil in Libya and Tunisia.
EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom says tiny Malta is struggling with a disproportionately large number of refugees from North Africa and she will urge EU countries to resettle many of them.
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