Schengen ‘won’t survive’: EU’s visa-free movement dream BUCKLING under migrant crisis

The continent is facing it’s biggest influx of refugees since World War II coupled with the increasing number of anti-immigrant government policies trying to crack down on migration has left the Schengen zone hanging in the balance.

Elizabeth Collett, director of the Migration Policy Institute Europe think-tank told the Financial Times: “There is such a fear that Schengen won’t survive that countries are being given the discretion to do whatever they can to keep it alive.”

It comes as German interior ministers are considering imposing border controls with Switzerland and France to avoid the a repeat of 2015, when Germany welcomed more than one million people.

Germany’s interior minister Horst Seehofer has called on the government to unilaterally sent people way at Germany’s internal borders. 

Even though the number of migrants coming into the EU has dramatically dropped since the height of the crisis in 2015, emergency powers still allow for border controls along the 20,00km inside the Schengen zone.

Observers fear this could lead to a spillover and other Schengen countries like Austria could enforce their own emergency border controls.

Helmut Teichmann, junior minister for migration at the Interior Ministry, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that the German cabinet is alarmed by developments in Spain.

He said: “We fear that many migrants could make their way to France, the Benelux countries and Germany.”

The Schengen agreement enables passport-free travel in 26 EU countries, but it is heavily criticised by eurosceptics who say that free movement rules and the bloc’s porous borders have exacerbated the EU’s illegal immigration problem. 

Earlier this year French President Emmanuel Macron was accused of upsetting European neighbours in a wasted effort to uphold an obsolete Schengen system.

Right-wing rival Nicolas Dupont-Aignan said: “What’s interesting about the current situation is that, beyond the controversies, recent events spell the end of Schengen. That’s it, it’s over.”

Mr Macron is “pitting France against the rest of Europe” to defend a “system which is already dead”.

He said: “National borders will be re-established in Europe, and so much the better.”

European leaders, namely Mr Macron, lack the political “maturity” to handle the migrant crisis, Mr Dupont-Aignan added.

In a blistering attack on the French premier, Mr Dupont-Aignan said: “The French president is completely immature. 

“His policies are low-end, and he’s damaging France’s interests. He’s turning all of Europe against France.”