EU Eyes Refugees, Terrorists With Border Controls, Air Data
The European Union took steps to improve the policing of its internal and external borders Friday, both to fight terrorism and manage the flow of refugees from Middle Eastern wars.
Greece, on the bloc’s southeastern flank, gave up its resistance to EU-flagged patrols to handle asylum-seekers in the Aegean Sea as countries further north laid the groundwork for future two-year suspensions of passport-free internal travel, a popular system in much of Europe since 1995.
In another anti-terror measure, EU interior ministers meeting in Brussels backed long-delayed, U.S.-inspired plans for tracking passenger data on flights to, from and within the bloc. Officials said the restrictions of some liberties was the price for keeping the 28-nation EU in working order.
“For free internal borders we need functioning external border protection, and it is falling short,” German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told reporters. “We’re running out of time.”
Greece agreed to partially handover border policing and migrant registration to EU teams after months of criticism of its lax refugee policies. Some governments had threatened to shut the country out of the passport-free travel zone due to its leaky external frontier.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-04/eu-eyes-refugees-terrorists-with-border-controls-air-data