Italian police officers (Carrabinieri) wait for a train heading north to Munich at the Brenner Pass | Philipp Guelland/Getty Images Commission warns Austria on plans for border fence Closing off the Brenner Pass would have to be looked at ‘very seriously,’ a spokeswoman said.

The European Commission warned Tuesday that Austria's plans to build a fence at its border with Italy in the Brenner Pass posed a threat to the EU's guarantee of free movement.

“The Commission is very concerned,” said Natasha Bertaud, a spokeswoman for the institution, reacting to reports that Austria was building a fence to halt the flow of migrants. “For the moment we have only seen announcements in the press, but if these plans should materialize then we would have to look at them very seriously.”

"The Brenner pass is essential for freedom of movement within the European Union,” Bertaud said, and that “for the time being there's no evidence that the flows of irregular migrants are shifting from Greece to Italy.”

Guardrails at the Brenner pass have been taken down and road signs will be changed as a 250-meter barrier will cross both the highway and the state road, Tyrolean Police Chief Helmut Tomac told the Austria press agency (Apa). The Brenner Pass is a strategic route for commerce between Germany and Italy, two of the eurozone's largest economies.

“The reintroduction of border controls at internal Schengen borders has to be exceptional and proportionate and so the Commission will assess any measures that are taken by Austria from the prospective of proportionality and necessity of the measures,” Bertaud said.

She added that the European commissioner for migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, was on Tuesday in contact with Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner about the plans.

Mikl-Leitner told Apa last week that Austria may close the Brenner Pass if migrant flows become uncontrollable.

"Italy cannot count on the fact that the Brenner will remain open if uncontrollable migrant flows arrive," she said. "As was done with the countries on the Balkan route, Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia, we want to inform Italy too of the measures we will take if there is an uncontrolled flow of migrants from Italy to Austria."

In a joint letter sent to Avramopoulos on Tuesday the Italian foreign and interior ministers, Paolo Gentiloni and Angelino Alfano, asked the Commission with “extreme urgency” to check whether the measures are in line with EU rules. They wrote that the decision to reinstate internal controls with Italy “does not appear supported by factual elements.”

Meanwhile, in Strasbourg on Tuesday the European Parliament approved a report advocating an "all-encompassing approach" to migration that would do away with the rules stating that asylum-seeker claims are the responsibility of the first country where they arrive — a policy that has put pressure on Greece and Italy.

Last week the Commission put forward a reform plan that offered options for reforming the regulation, including an automatic refugee relocation scheme that would be triggered only once arrivals have reached a threshold.

Addressing the plenary session in Strasbourg on Tuesday, the co-author of the Parliament's report, Roberta Metsola of the center-right European People's Party, said that Europe needs to shift its thinking on migration. “No more emergency solutions to emergency situations," she said. "There is no quick fix to migration; there is no magical silver bullet.”

This article was updated to include additional information.

Authors: