[DeutscheWelle] The European Commission's hope to restore the Schengen system's border-free internal travel by the end of the year is looking bleak. As interior ministers met in Luxembourg Thursday, the overriding view was that it's not feasible to drop the emergency measures by mid-November when they are scheduled to end.The controls were put in place by Austria, Denmark, Germany, Norway and Sweden in the midst of the migration crisis as countries sought to manage the influx of hundreds of thousands of people. German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told journalists upon arrival in Luxembourg Thursday that it's "right we should extend the possibility of border controls on a European basis." They can only be renewed up to a total of two years.
"We want to go back to a control-free Schengen," de Maiziere insists, "but for that we have to have better protection of external borders." Austrian Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka added that "reality" dictates a prolongation, with 50,000 refugees in Greece and many more in the Balkans. "I can hardly imagine that the system will be functioning on November 15," Sobotka said. "I think it will probably be necessary to have an extension or we have to think of other steps."
But prolonged blockage of free movement will be anything but free, according to a new study by the RAND Europe research Institute. Commissioned by the European Parliament to "investigate the economic, social and political costs of 'non-Schengen''', the report warns leaders the annual cost of permanently re-establishing border controls could be as high as 2‐3 billion euros ($2.2-3.6 billion) every year. That's after one-time costs that could range up to 19 billion euros "depending on the timeframe."
Interior ministers are discussing agreements with Æthiopia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal
... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees...
that involve - openly acknowledged by some member governments but not the European Commission - the exchange of funds to be used for development in exchange for progress to block migrant outflows and take back failed asylum-seeker citizens.