Day by day, the face of Europe is dramatically changing as terrorist threats and out-of-control immigration destroy the EU's idyll of passport-free travel between its member states.
Italy, for example, ramped up border checks this month with neighbouring Slovenia, blaming the Israel-Hamas war for an 'increased threat of violence within the EU' and the risk of terrorist-migrants arriving amid 'constant migratory pressure from land and sea'. The border clampdowns fly in the face of the Schengen treaty introduced nearly 40 years ago to allow free movement of travellers between France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
Last year, a third of a million asylum-seekers, refugees and illegal migrants successfully entered the EU through its external borders and were then — under Schengen rules — able to travel on wherever they wished inside the bloc. But the border crackdown by EU nations has come under fire for restricting travel rights for 400 million Europeans living in the bloc.
Germany's ruling coalition — which includes pro-migration Greens — has sounded the alarm over police figures showing 20,000 illegal migrants entered the country in September alone Germany's ruling coalition — which includes pro-migration Greens — has sounded the alarm over police figures showing 20,000 illegal migrants entered the country in September alone. This came on top of an influx of 92,119 in the preceding period from January until the end of August.
In France , Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that French citizens are looking for 'decisions in a Europe surrounded by unstable lands. Sweden warns it is checking all its EU borders due to Islamic terrorism and the serious threat to national security posed by it. Croatia's prime minister Andrej Plenkovic has welcomed the stricter pan-European borders: 'The EU is surrounded by a series of very big crises... bigger than any time in the past 30 years.
Slovakia's new pro-Russian Prime Minister Robert Fico visited the border with Hungary last month, after announcing a large military and police deployment to stop migrants entering She predicted that the entire Schengen project could be 'shattered' in the frantic bid to safeguard Europe's safety.In Italy, interior minister Matteo Piantedosi has said new spot checks at the Slovenia border are likely to run into next year. Already police had stopped 3,142 people and 1,555 vehicles in one operation, when 66 migrants were tracked down and several people questioned over irregular migration offences.