Prague, May 2 (CTK) – Interim inner border checks can hardly be challenged unless a system of reliable protection of the Schengen area is secured, Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek said on Monday, reacting to six countries´ request that the EC enable them to prolong the interim border checks.
Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany and Sweden seek the prolongation of the checks on their borders, which are inner borders within the Schengen area of the free movement of people, by another six months.
Zaoralek (Social Democrats, CSSD) said he hopes the situation will be solved within a year.
“They are convinced that they are unable to cope with the wave of migrants. These are measures that are quite a logical consequence of the fact that the whole system [of the Schengen area protection] is not effective enough,” Zaoralek said during a meeting of the Czech cabinet.
He said the EU will be tackling the problem of temporary measures until the moment when a functioning general system is introduced, which would guarantee Schengen’s outer border protection at 100 percent.
Last September, eight of the 26 Schengen area states introduced national border checks in order to curb and monitor the influx of refugees based on the EU rules that enable the members to take the measure under certain circumstances for a period of eight months at least.
In March, the EC said if evident shortcomings in the protection of the outer Schengen border persist after May 12, it would propose that member countries prolong the checks.
