Migration and Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said on Wednesday the draft Schengen evaluation report on Greece “showed serious deficiencies” but that the situation has started to improve, following the discussion of the report by the College of Commissioners in Brussels.

“If we want to maintain our internal area of free movement, we must better manage our external borders. This means that we will only save Schengen by applying Schengen … The report shows that there are serious deficiencies in the management of the external border in Greece. We know that in the meantime Greece has started undertaking efforts towards rectifying and complying with the Schengen rules,” he noted in a press release.

“Substantial improvements are needed to ensure the proper reception, registration, relocation or return of migrants in order to bring Schengen functioning back to normal, without internal border controls. This is our ultimate common goal,” he added.