EU says Germany, France should phase out border checks within bloc
BRUSSELS: Germany, France, Italy and other EU countries that have put in place border controls with other nations in the bloc should move to phase them out, Brussels said Tuesday.
The European Commission said the bloc’s new external digital border check system and the imminent coming into force of a migration pact strengthening screening procedures lessened the need for internal controls.
“With these conditions in place, member states are in the position to work towards phasing out controls at internal borders,” said Magnus Brunner, the EU’s commissioner for migration.
Free movement is the rule within the EU’s Schengen area and countries can put up checks at the frontier with fellow members only if they feel there is a threat to public order or internal security.
Such measures should be exceptional and temporary — in principle not lasting more than two years.
Yet, under political pressure to crack down on migration, many capitals have increasingly used the clause to deploy agents to check comings and goings.
Germany has had some sort of controls on at least part of its border almost continuously in place since 2015.
When checks last more than 12 months, the commission has to review the case for them.
On Tuesday it issued opinions to Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands Slovenia, Sweden and Norway.
The latter is not an EU member but is part of the Schengen area.
It found that overall the checks were established “due to genuine and legitimate concerns related to security threats and the migratory situation”.
But it suggested that they should be gradually replaced by “non-systematic police checks”, “mobile biometric identification” and “vehicle tracking technologies”.
Irregular border crossings into the EU detected by authorities fell by 40% in the first four months of 2026 compared with the same period last year, according to the EU’s border agency.
The bloc’s new automated system replacing passport stamps with a digital registration and the collection of facial images and fingerprints, became operational in April — causing long queues at some airports.
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