(ANSA) - Brussels, February 16 - Closure of the European Union's internal borders in response to pressure from migrants and refugees would be "aberrant", European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker said on Tuesday.

"I am not in favour of closing the frontiers within the European Union, I find it aberrant," Juncker told the European Parliament.

"Either we are a true continent or we are a whole that shuts itself away in national categories," he added. Several European Union member states have responded to the influx of migrants and refugees by activating a clause in the Schengen open-border agreement allowing one or more countries to shut borders for up to two years, calling into question the principle of the free circulation of goods, people and services on which the EU is based. Juncker also advocated a "virtuous strategy" for politicians seeking a way out of the prolonged economic crisis. "Intransigent austerity must not be the sole response to the crisis," he said. "I am a partisan of this virtuous mix of consolidation of public finances, structural reforms and investments," Juncker continued. "These are the elements of the virtuous strategy that our politicians need to implement in Europe," he said.

