Vociferously defending his nation's opposition to an enlargement of Schengen, Dutch Immigration Minister Gerd Leers set the scene Thursday for a combative meeting in Brussels that will also feature a debate on border checks in the European free-travel area, it was reported by dpa. Bulgaria and Romania have fulfilled all the technical requirements to join the 25-member Schengen area, but have seen their entry delayed once before over concerns about their lagging efforts to rein in corruption and organized crime. "Imagine, you have a door with eight of the best locks of the world, but before that door is standing someone who lets everybody in, then we have a problem," Leers told reporters ahead of the regular meeting of the ministers responsible for EU internal affairs. "We are not in favour for an accession at this moment," he added. "For us, it has to be clear that ... we can have trust." Finland has taken the same stance, diplomats said, leaving them pessimistic about the prospects of a compromise that had gained traction among most other Schengen members: dropping controls for Bulgaria and Romania only at sea and air crossings this year, with land border controls continuing until 2012. In a bid to address some of the concerns, Germany and France have insisted that the decision to scrap land borders not be automatic, but rather conditional on Bulgaria and Romania scoring better marks on crime and corruption next year. "We have to reconcile the interest of the member states to provide for their security with the justifiable interest of Bulgaria and Romania to finally become full members," Germany's state secretary for the interior, Ole Schroeder, said as he arrived for the meeting. The Schengen area, in existence since 1985, currently encompasses all European Union member states except Britain, Cyprus, Ireland, Romania and Bulgaria, as well as non-EU countries Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. The border-free zone came under the spotlight earlier this year after an influx of migrants from unrest-beset North Africa led some countries to push for the ability to tighten border controls in cases of enhanced immigration, not just when there are public safety concerns. The European Commission, the EU's executive, has brought forward a proposal along those lines, but has also sought to have a greater say in the matter. That has put it at odds with member states, who insist they by law have control over decisions related to public safety. "I am very happy to ... make the criteria for border closures more concrete," Swiss Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga said. "But Switzerland, and other countries too, will continue to insist that the decision on when to close borders is a sovereign one."
