2023-04-28 22:01:15
Innsbruck (OTS) – Austria has announced that it will once more extend its border controls with Slovenia and Hungary. Germany extends its controls to Austria. This is probably not legal within the Schengen area.
We’re used to it. When driving through the Kufstein-Kiefersfelden border crossing to Bavaria, we have to pass heavily armed police officers, the border is checked. And that despite the fact that it is an internal border in the Schengen area. The dismantling of border controls in the Schengen area, which includes 27 European countries, is being hailed as one of the most important achievements of European integration and is expected to allow over 400 million people to travel freely between member countries. Unfortunately, the Schengen rules are no longer worth the paper they are written on. The idea of a borderless Europe was shelved with the migration crisis in 2015. At that time, numerous EU states lowered the border bar and later did not lift the controls – as actually recommended in the Schengen Borders Code. Instead, they are repeatedly extended by a further six months.
Yes, a Schengen member country can introduce and extend border controls for six months in the event of a serious threat to public order or internal security. And that is also understandable. But it must justify this and invoke a new threat if controls are extended. But that doesn’t seem to matter anymore. According to a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) at the end of April last year, Austrian border controls with Slovenia have not been legal since November 2017. Austria now wants to extend its border controls with Slovenia by another six months. Asylum pressure is once more being used as an argument – there can be no question of a new threat. Germany has already announced that it will extend its border controls with Austria. But where is the legal basis? Can European law simply be ignored?
So far everything has been waved through. Neither the individual member states nor the EU Commission protested. After the migration crisis of 2015, voters should be given a feeling of security at the borders. Even if one can seriously doubt the usefulness – if, for example, the border is checked in Kiefersfelden and there are no longer any controls a few kilometers away. It’s all regarding the optics.
If the EU countries no longer want to implement Schengen, alternatives must be sought quickly. But simply tricking things around once more and once more cannot be in the interests of EU citizens and the European idea.
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