Redraft Schengen agreement to secure European borders: French President Emmanuel Macron

Paris: – French President Emmanuel Macron insistently demanded to redraft the Schengen agreement to secure the European borders against the background of successive terror attacks in France and Austria. The terrorist who carried out the Nice attack had come from Italy to France. As per information, the terrorist involved in the attack on Austria had procured weapons from Slovakia. It has been observed that the ease of passage from one European country to the other, under the Schengen agreement, allows the terrorists to move easily to carry out attacks in other countries. Therefore, the demand of the French President becomes significant.

There have been five terror attacks in Europe, in the last two months and these include four in France and one in Austria. It has been exposed that immigrants have a hand in most of the terror attacks carried out in Europe, in the last five years. There has been a consistent demand to tighten the security at the European borders, to prevent immigrant infiltration and the terrorists entering under the disguise of immigrants. There is also a demand to shut down the Schengen scheme, considered to be the foundation of the European Union. But leading countries, including Germany, have opposed the move.

The demand made by the French President indicates that there is a change in the scenario. Macron said that there is a need to restructure the Schengen systems. It is important to change the entire system to ensure tighter security on the European border. France will present a proposal, in this regard, in the Union’s meeting, scheduled for the next month. French President also said that there is a need to deploy an effective Security Police Force for the security of the external European borders. At the time, Macron informed that France would be doubling the security deployment on the French border. There are 2,400 soldiers deployed on the French border as of now and Macron said that this number would be doubled to 4,800 soldiers, soon. Only a few days ago, France had indicated increasing the soldier deployment in various parts of the country to 7,000.

The French President also pointed out ‘While fighting the terrorism perpetrated by the extremists, the networks involved in human trafficking of immigrants will also have to be tackled. These networks are connected with terrorists and terrorism.’ Since the last few days, France has launched a massive campaign against the extremists and inquiries have been started against many groups. It was announced that a few suspects have been taken into custody and more than 200 foreigners have been deported.

There has been a major immigrant influx in Europe since 2015. The European countries have completely failed to control the influx. Significant social and political effects of this influx are becoming apparent in Europe. Only a few months ago, Turkish President Recep Erdogan had threatened to push millions of immigrants through the European border.