Europe hardens its borders

last updated 8 January 2015

Spain

Luis Ignacio Parada

Is this the end of Europe’s open borders? asked Luis Ignacio Parada in Madrid’s ABC. In the wake of the London bombings, France has started checking the passports of E.U. citizens attempting to enter the country. The French made this decision “unilaterally,” without consulting any of the other members of the Schengen accord, the agreement that allows visa-free travel. French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy claims that the London attacks constitute the kind of “extraordinary situation” that allows a country to suspend Schengen. His logic, though, is hard to follow. The London bombers were British citizens, and most of them born and raised in Britain. They weren’t “foreign terrorists who managed to sneak across the border” without having to show a passport. The strictest border controls couldn’t have prevented Britain’s tragedy. Sarkozy, then, is “shamelessly” exploiting the London attacks so he can implement the tough security measures he has long championed. Evidently he doesn’t care if, while saving France, he kills “European integration.”