Schengen Closed

From the BBC:

"Migrant crisis: More EU states impose border checks"

 

More EU countries have said they are imposing border checks to deal with an influx of migrants. Austria, Slovakia and the Netherlands said they would tighten controls, hours after Germany imposed checks on its border with Austria.  It came as EU interior ministers held emergency talks in Brussels. Hungary also completed a fence along its border with Serbia on Monday, and blocked a railway line used as the main crossing point by migrants. The BBC's Fergal Keane at the border said people were being directed to an official registration point near the town of Roszke. Hungary is due to enforce tougher measures from midnight, including arresting illegal immigrants, and Prime Minister Viktor Orban told Hungary's TV2 a state of emergency was "likely" to be introduced in the border area. The new border checks further north are a challenge to the EU's Schengen agreement on free movement, although the rules do allow for temporary controls in emergencies. European states have been struggling to cope with a record influx of migrants, many aiming for Germany. EU ministers are due to vote on a plan from May to redistribute an initial 40,000 asylum seekers from Syria and Eritrea through mandatory quotas, though Central and East European states have opposed this.  The EU has since raised the total number of people it seeks to share out through quotas to 160,000 asylum seekers across 23 EU states.   On arrival in Brussels, Slovak Interior Minister Robert Kalinak said he was against the quota plan, because "it's not possible to hold the migrants in the countries by force".  Some other former communist states in Central and Eastern Europe also oppose mandatory quotas. Austrian police said up to 7,000 people had arrived from Hungary on Monday, and 14,000 on Sunday. Chancellor Werner Faymann said troops were also being deployed, primarily to provide humanitarian help within Austria, but would be sent to the border if necessary. "If Germany carries out border controls, Austria must put strengthened border controls in place," Vice-Chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner said.   Also on the EU ministers' agenda is a plan to agree a common list of countries considered safe for migrants to be sent back to - a measure that could speed up deportations.  Meanwhile the EU approved a plan for its operation in the Mediterranean to conduct "search, seizure and diversion... of vessels suspected of being used for human smuggling". Most of the migrants who surged into Hungary in recent weeks fled conflict, oppression and poverty in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Eritrea. Many have been refusing to register in countries such as Greece or Hungary, fearing it will stop them being granted asylum in Germany or other EU states.  On Monday, Germany's new border controls were said to be causing traffic jams as long as 20km (12 miles) on motorways in Austria. Local media also reported that 25 suspected people traffickers had been arrested overnight, though there was no sign of migrants being turned back.

^  Many EU countries (especially Germany) criticized other countries like Hungary for trying to deal with all the migrants entering their country and now the shoe's on the other foot. Germany is now doing the same (minus the border wall - for now.) It's clear the EU doesn't have a good system to deal with this or much of anything. They usually don't make a plan until after something happens (rather than try and have something in place just in case it does happen.) Then it takes several years to get all the member-states to set something up. That slow-paced "thinking" is what put the EU in its current situation and while individual member-states are trying to solve the massive number of migrants themselves.  The main issue the chaos in the EU right now shows is that the member-states don't seem to trust other member-states as well as no one trusting the main EU Government. ^

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34242123