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In an announcement tonight eurocrats said there was no justification for keeping police checkpoints at frontiers within the bloc and said they must be removed by the end of the year. The diktat means that Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway will all have to swiftly find alternative ways to police irregular movements of people across their borders.

GETTY Dimitris Avramopoulos said member states must drop internal border controls

France, which has had checkpoints in place at its borders since the November 2015 terror attacks, is the only country to be exempted as it is still in a state of emergency. Announcing the measure tonight, the EU’s migration chief Dimitris Avramopoulos said the time had come to “return to a normal functioning of the Schengen area”.

EXPRESS Border posts have been put up in five member states (file picture)

He added that the five member states, which have been given a final six month extension to get their border controls in order, had been made aware of what was expected of them. The Greek official said: “Schengen is one of the greatest achievements of the European project and the most tangible example of European integration. “We must do everything to safeguard protect and defend it. But the only way to do this is in a joint, European and coordinated way. “What we propose today is to gradually phase out temporary internal border controls whilst at the same time strengthening the usual, proportionate police checks across the territory of the member states.”

This will be the last prolongation EU migration chief Dimitris Avramopoulos

Mr Avramopoulos warned: “These temporary border controls, and this goes for all internal border controls, should be exceptional, proportionate and as a last resort for a strict and a limited period. “This will be the last prolongation. No more than the next six months. They [member states] know that this is the last prolongation.” However, the member states will not be granted any additional powers to police their borders above and beyond what was already in place two years ago when the migration crisis first began. Instead Mr Avramopoulos said national authorities should “make use of the existing police powers more effectively” and cited the example of increasing camera checks on motorway traffic. Eurocrats said the border controls could be lifted because the bloc’s external frontiers, which are not patrolled by a centralised Brussels coastguard, are more secure.

BORDER-FREE Schengen: Countries you can visit WITHOUT a passport Mon, January 23, 2017 If you are an EU national, you do not need to show your national ID card or passport when you are travelling from one border-free Schengen EU country to another. The Schengen Area is an area comprising 26 European states that have officially abolished passport and any other type of border control at their mutual borders. Play slideshow 1 of 25