Thursday

28th Mar 2024

France pledges overhaul of EU free-travel to stop terrorists

  • French president Emmanuel Macron (Photo: Consilium)

French president Emmanuel Macron has pledged profound reform of free movement in the EU in the wake of recent terrorist attacks.

"I am in favour of a deep overhaul of Schengen," he said while visiting the Franco-Spanish border on Thursday (5 November), referring to the passport-free 'Schengen' travel zone, which covers most of the EU's 27 states.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

The recent jihadist killings in Paris, in the French city of Nice, and in Vienna, showed that "the terrorist risk is everywhere", he said.

The attackers in Paris and Vienna had lived inside Europe, but "in Nice, the terrorist who murdered three of our compatriots had crossed several borders before striking on national territory," Macron noted.

The man, from Tunisia, had come to Italy by boat, before crossing to France by train.

Meanwhile, the Vienna attacker had also crossed the border to Slovakia to try to buy ammunition, even though he had a previous conviction in Austria for planning terrorist assaults.

"We need to bolster our fight against illegal immigration and traffickers who, increasingly often, have links to terrorism," Macron said.

"We should radically overhaul Schengen to rethink its organisation, to intensify our common border protection with a real security police force at the external borders of the area, but also by strengthening the integration of our rules and ... a joint operation of our ministers in charge of internal and security matters," he added.

Macron gave no other details, but promised to submit proposals at an upcoming EU summit in December.

A French official told the Reuters news agency that Macron was counting on Austrian, Dutch, and German support for his overhaul.

The Italian foreign minister, Luigi Di Maio, earlier on Wednesday, also said: "Anyone can enter a member state and cross Europe. The risk is too high, the European vulnerability too large".

Irregular entries into the EU were at much lower levels today than at the height of the migration crisis in 2015, when more than 1 million people entered the bloc.

But there were some 628,000 non-EU citizens found to be illegally present in the European Union in 2019, up 10 percent on the previous year, according to European Commission data.

And several EU states, as well as the UK, have warned of a heightened risk of further jihadist attacks, amid a wave of fury in Islamic nations, following Macron's recent defence of French media and academics' right to distribute cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, deemed blasphemous by some Muslims.

EU condemns 'despicable' shooting in Vienna

Leaders in Europe condemned the terror attack in Vienna, with Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz calling it "not a conflict between Christians and Muslims or between Austrians and migrants... [but] a fight between civilisation and barbarism."

EU rules to take terror content down in an hour agreed

A partial agreement has been reached to prevent the dissemination of terrorist content online, pushing companies like Facebook or YouTube to remove or disable access to this material within one hour.

EU Commission: EU free-travel overhaul planned

Plans to reform the EU free-travel zone were already announced in September by the European Commission. On Friday, it re-stated those intentions following demands by the French president for a major overhaul.

Stakeholder

Towards a truly 'European' Union

The EU did not solve the financial crisis, nor fix terrorism or radicalisation. Unlike most other political groups, the ECR doesn't believe these are temporary difficulties, but rather the consequences of the path this Union has taken in recent decades.

EU Parliament set to sue EU Commission over Hungary funds

The European Parliament will likely take the European Commission to court for unblocking more than €10bn in funds for Hungary last December. A final nod of approval is still needed by European Parliament president, Roberta Metsola.

Opinion

Potential legal avenues to prosecute Navalny's killers

The UN could launch an independent international investigation into Navalny's killing, akin to investigation I conducted on Jamal Khashoggi's assassination, or on Navalny's Novichok poisoning, in my role as special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, writes the secretary-general of Amnesty International.

Opinion

I'll be honest — Moldova's judicial system isn't fit for EU

To state a plain truth: at present, Moldova does not have a justice system worthy of a EU member state; it is riven with corruption and lax and inconsistent standards, despite previous attempts at reform, writes Moldova's former justice minister.

Latest News

  1. Kenyan traders react angrily to proposed EU clothes ban
  2. Lawyer suing Frontex takes aim at 'antagonistic' judges
  3. Orban's Fidesz faces low-polling jitters ahead of EU election
  4. German bank freezes account of Jewish peace group
  5. EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania
  6. 'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told
  7. Moscow's terror attack, security and Gaza
  8. Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us