EU Commission Vice President Criticizes “Mini-Schengen” Ideas

The Vice President of the European Commission, Margaritis Schinas has criticized the idea of the creation of a ‘mini-Schengen’ area within the European Union, upon the end of the Coronavirus pandemic, which has circulated within some of the member states recently, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.

The comments of Vice President Schinas referred to the reopening of borders between three Central European countries, Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, which their leaders named a ‘mini-Schengen’ within the European Union.

“We think we could create a mini-Schengen allowing people to travel without border checks, tests or subsequent quarantine in mid-June,” the Czech Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek pointed out through videoconference.

In an interview for Euronews, when asked about this idea, Vice President Schinas said that there is no way the current Schengen can be replaced by a smaller Schengen.

“I’m going to give you an example about borders. In no way will the intention to return to our usual Schengen, removing the current restrictions on our internal borders, be replaced by a kind of regional mini Schengens that fragment our single market and discriminate against non-participating member states. This is not possible,” he insisted.

However, he noted that it is possible that regions and member states with similar epidemiological levels begin to lift restrictions on internal borders in an orderly and non-discriminatory, and that it is, above all, safe for those who travel.

Earlier this month, Germany and Austria announced they would open their borders to each other on June 15, as both countries started to see a decrease in the number of infections.

“If they do that … it would be nice to open the borders with Germany, Austria, Hungary and hopefully also Slovakia on June 15,” the Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis has pointed out.

Previously on May 6 after, the leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania decided to abolish the travel ban, which has been imposed to contain the spread of Coronavirus, in a bid to facilitate its citizens’ free movement.

Schinas stressed that he didn’t want the so-called ‘Baltic travel bubble’ to be a long-term feature.