EU home affairs ministers are meeting to consider controversial proposals to change Europe's 25-nation Schengen accord on passport-free travel. Divisions have emerged over how best to handle the influx of migrants fleeing the turmoil in North Africa, BBC News informs.
Italy and Malta, on the immigration frontline, are urging their EU partners to help them more. Schengen allows for the temporary reimposition of border controls in special cases to ensure public order.
This week the European Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso, said such measures should be "exceptions" and "an absolute last resort".
He said freedom of movement, enshrined by Schengen, was one of the EU's essential foundations.
On the eve of the Brussels meeting, Denmark announced that it would reinstate control booths on its borders with Germany and Sweden within weeks.
Denmark will carry out random checks of cars and passports, deploying more customs officers and video surveillance to tackle cross-border crime, Finance Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen said.
Denmark, like the rest of Scandinavia, is a Schengen member and Mr Frederiksen insisted that the extra controls would be in line with the EU agreement.
In June 1985, leaders from Germany, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands met in Schengen, Luxembourg, and agreed gradually to abolish checks at shared borders
Created single external border, harmonised some rules on asylum and visas, enhanced police and judicial co-operation and established shared information database
Irish Republic and UK co-operate in certain aspects of Schengen but border checks retained Austria joined agreement in 1997, followed by Nordic countries in 2000. Nine new EU member states were incorporated in 2007 and Switzerland in 2008
The anti-immigration Danish People's Party, a key ally of the government, had demanded the reimposition of border checks.
Populist parties elsewhere in Europe are making similar demands, amid widespread fears that migrant workers are taking advantage of Schengen at a time of economic hardship.
