(VOVWORLD) - Ministers of Interior of EU member countries have agreed on new security measures which require visitors to the EU’s borderless Schengen area to undergo online screening before arrival.
 France's border checkpoint (Photo: AP) |
The EU is tightening security in the wake of terrorist attacks carried out by the Islamic State and waves of illegal migrants. The measures will check visitors’ identity documents and other details against a variety of EU security and crime databases.
Citizens of 60 countries do not need to apply for a visa to the Schengen area, such as the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Albania, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Under the new proposal, those who apply for visa exemption to visit Schengen area, including 22 EU countries, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, and Denmark, will have to complete a 5euro online security check for multiple entries in more than 3 years. The proposal will need the approval of European Parliament and will take effect by 2020.
In April, in an effort to ensure security in Europe, EU member states reintroduced temporary border controls, requiring EU nationals to show their passports or ID cards when travelling from one border-free Schengen EU country to another. EU nationals also underwent database checks at national, continent, and global levels. The decision caused traffic chaos over the weekends in Slovenia-Croatia border area, an important transit point of the so-called Balkan migrant trial, which was sealed off in 2016.