The Paris attacks on November 13 may result in changes to the Schengen Zone with media reports of Greece getting kicked out, along with Spain and Italy, under a radical plan to save the European Union passport-free travel. Thousands of refugees may be trapped in Greece as Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands re-draw the boundaries to just include original members, thus creating a mini-Schengen zone.
The Daily Mail reports that strict checks may be introduced at passport controls to systematically compare the names of all arrivals with those on counter-terrorism data bases, potentially causing long entry lines at border regions. The matte is being seriously considered after one of the suicide bombers involved in the Paris attacks got to France after posing as a Syrian refugee on the Greek island of Leros.
An emergency meeting of EU justice and interior ministers has been called following the attacks to discuss re-drawing the Schengen Zone. Leaders have been holding private discussions ahead of the summit to work out if a mini-Schengen would help ease the crisis.
The current Schengen zone consists of 26 countries – 22 European Union countries and Norway and Switzerland – and was created 20 years ago to have a single external border. There is no internal border passport control within this zone that includes all the EU member states, except the UK, Ireland, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia – as well as Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, which are all outside the EU.
