EU leaders agreed to tighten migration safeguards, including potentially reintroducing border controls between states, in a controversial response to an influx of migrants fleeing North Africa’s upheaval.
Citizens of all 27 EU states are generally allowed to travel freely throughout the bloc. Twenty-two EU states and three non-members have gone further, eliminating border controls between them entirely under the Schengen agreement, named for a village in Luxembourg where the pact was signed in 1985.
Speaking after the summit, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that without reforms Europe’s Schengen zone would be damaged by unilateral moves by EU states. “I have been very pleased that we took that step, because I really value Schengen and I insisted that if Schengen was not reformed then there was a risk that it could disappear,” he said.
Source: Athensnews
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