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The Minister of Interior of Spain, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, has urged the EU during a meeting in Brussels to end the Schengen Area internal border controls.
Minister Grande-Marlaska said that the internal border controls are “harming EU citizens”, and the same stressed that the controls are also undermining the essence of Schengen, whose function is to let people travel restriction-free, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
“The controls, which should be an exceptional resource, are undermining the area of free movement and the essence of Schengen,” the statement of the Minister reads.
Instead of continuing to keep internal border controls in certain Schengen borders, Minister Grande-Marlaska suggested that the member states should focus on working together in the area of migration and strengthen controls at the external border.
Moreover, he pointed out that the EU’s solidarity mechanism is the most appropriate framework to achieve progress in the migration area and stressed that cooperation between European security agencies is essential in the fight against human trafficking and smuggling.
“Achieving synergy between Frontex, Europol and Eurojust is a fundamental operational measure,” Minister Grande-Marlaska added.
In addition to the above-mentioned, the Minister highlighted that Spain has been able to significantly lower the number of illegal arrivals to the country. According to him, Spain was able to do so thanks to the preventative measures it introduced.
Data show that the number of illegal migrant arrivals in Spain has decreased by 56.9 per cent so far this year, and the authorities aim to keep illegal arrivals under control for the rest of the year.
Spain is not the only country that has introduced preventative measures. Several other EU/Schengen Area countries have been registering a high number of illegal migrant arrivals, and the majority of them have taken measures and have tightened their border controls.
The most recent data provided by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex, show that the number of illegal border crossings in the Western Mediterranean route fell by 38 per cent in the first two months of 2023.
According to Frontex, in January and February 2023, the authorities detected a total of 1,099 illegal border crossings in the Western Mediterranean route, with the top nationalities being Morocco, Algeria, and Senegal.
As for the overall data, it has been shown that EU national authorities detected 28,130 illegal border crossings in the first two months of this year. Of all the routes, the Central Mediterranean and the Western Balkan route were the most active, registering 11,951 and 8,394 illegal border crossings, respectively.
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