Macron proposes a ‘political piloting’ of Schengen to secure external borders and guarantee internal security
French President Emmanuel Macron urged his European partners on Wednesday to reform the Schengen area to guarantee both “the free movement of people in all security” and “protect the external borders of the EU.” It is one of the priorities of the French presidency this semester. For this, he proposes the creation of a ‘Schengen council’ following the model of the Eurogroup, the informal body in which the ministers of the euro area regularly debate issues related to the single currency.
In the case of border control, the heads of the Interior would also meet periodically to carry out a “political piloting” of the community zone of free movement in order to have greater coordination. For the creation of this new body it would not be necessary to review the treaties, according to sources from the Elysée Palace.
The president recalled on Wednesday that the Schengen agreement entered into force before the wave of terrorism and the successive migratory crises that Europe has experienced in recent years. Hence, the need to reform it to adapt it to the current situation, Macron insisted in statements to the press before opening the informal meeting of Justice and Interior ministers that is being held this Thursday in Tourcoing (northern France).
He advocates equipping the Frontex agency with some 10,000 coast guards and guards before 2027
The pact, which was signed in 1985 in the Luxembourg city of Schengen, has been in force since 1995. This area is currently made up of twenty-six European countries that abolished their internal border controls and transferred them to external borders with third countries. Twenty-two of them are members of the European Union and four are not (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein).
“Our space of free movement is threatened today if we do not know how to maintain our external borders and monitor who enters,” Macron warned in an interview with the newspaper ‘La Voix du Nord’ before the meeting of European ministers.
Macron advocated providing more resources to Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, created in 2004 to help Member States and Schengen associated countries to protect the external borders of the free movement area. The goal is to have about 10,000 coast guards and border guards by 2027, up from 6,500 today. Frontex is financed from the Community budgets and from the contributions of the associated countries.
emergency support
The Elysée tenant also wants to establish “an emergency support mechanism” at the external borders of the EU in the event of a migration crisis. It would be piloted by the ‘Schengen council’. The State affected by a sudden migration crisis would count on the support of Frontex and the solidarity of the other partners.
The French head of state also advocated “advancing the asylum-immigration package.” Macron considers that there is a need for “greater convergence of asylum policies” and immigration of the member states. To this end, Paris is committed to reforming Eurodac, the fingerprint database to identify asylum seekers and irregular immigrants who cross the border, in order to prevent the same person from making multiple asylum requests in several countries.
Two and a half months before the gaka presidential elections, Macron opened his electoral campaign by putting his proposals on migration on the table. And he did it in Tourcoing, the small homeland of the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, a prominent member of the right wing of the Government. He has not yet officially announced that he is running for re-election, but no one is sure that he will. The outgoing president does not want to appear soft in this section in the face of the heavy-handed proposals on illegal immigration from the conservative Valérie Pécresse and the extreme right-wingers Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour. Immigration is one of the favorite topics of the right and the extreme right in these elections.
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