Europe

Europe

Sarkozy calls for Schengen reform in Europe

02 December 2011 03:02 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. French President Nicola Sarkozy said Thursday that the passport-free Schengen agreement should be rethought and re-founded so as to regulate border deals within certain European Union countries.

Sarkozy made the remarks while delivering a speech on Europe and the eurozone debt crisis in the southern French port city of Toulon, the same city where he spoke in 2008 about the global financial crisis and the need to "re-found global capitalism."

"A Europe that applies the principle of free movement internally and does not control its external borders cannot last. The Schengen must be rethought," Sarkozy said in the speech.

"We can not stand unlimited social immigrants," he said, stressing that "Europe needs more political responsibility."

Unfair competition caused by "social dumping and tax dumping between member states" could not continue, Sarkozy added, demanding immigrants to share the value of France for integration.

The Schengen Agreement signed on 14 June 1985 near the town of Schengen in Luxembourg allows migrants to travel across Europe’s border-free Schengen zone comprising the territories of twenty-five European countries that approved the agreement.

In April, when thousands of North African immigrants poured in Europe via Italy after unrest in Libya, Sarkozy and Italian authorities expressed willingness to adjust the Schengen agreement and better regulate illegal immigrants.