The European Commission is encouraging EU member countries to remove border controls by the year’s end to preserve the Union’s “crowning achievement” of passport-free travel, according to a draft report obtained by the Guardian. Due to the influx of more than 1 million refugees and migrants, many of them fleeing the war in Syria, currently seven European countries have reinstated border checks, suspending the Schengen agreement that allows passport-free travel between 26 European nations. These controls “place into question the proper functioning of the Schengen area of free movement,” according to the report that will be published Friday. The Commission wants them removed “as quickly as possible,” and by November at the latest. * [Two migrants prior to boarding a dinghy to cross the Aegean Sea to the Greek island of Lesbos from the Ayvacik coast in Turkey on February 28, 2016] Also On Politico UN: 130,000 MIGRANTS CROSS MEDITERRANEAN IN FIRST TWO MONTHS OF 2016 Vince Chadwick and Ivo Oliveira Stretching from Iceland to Greece and including all EU member countries except the U.K., Ireland, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Cyprus, Schengen is one of the cornerstones of the EU’s integration policy. The Commission’s report urges member countries to “pull together in the common interest to safeguard one of the Union’s crowning achievements.”
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