Berlin Mulls Border Control Extension

BERLIN, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News -21st Sept,2016) : German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said Wednesday he favoured a six-month extension for border controls which Brussels has authorised until November.

"The border controls are in place until mid-November and the time has not yet come to decide whether they will be extended. But if things stay as they are today then I favour an extension," De Maiziere told a news conference.

"Of course it is our goal to lift checks at borders within the Schengen Area but for that to happen permanent and durable protection of exterior (EU) frontiers is indispensable," De Maiziere added.

The European Union in May adopted as an exceptional measure a six-month extension of border checks amid the worst migrant crisis Europe has known since World War II to cover the partial suspension of the nominally passport-free Schengen Area.

The European Commission can in exceptional circumstances extend the measure in six-monthly increments up to a maximum of two years if it sees fit. Germany acted to reintroduce checks after last year taking in more than a million asylum-seekers, mainly fleeing the war in Syria and expects around 300,000 more this year.

But the issue has become a political hot potato for the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel. The Commission accepted checks on some Schengen internal borders as the EU bloc's external border in Greece was still not solid enough despite an EU deal with Turkey in March dramatically reducing the migrant flow.