EU Lost Ability to Protect External Borders Amid Migrant Influx – Tusk

European Council President Donald Tusk said that no task was more important to the European Union’s integrity today than re-establishing control over Europe's external borders.

MADRID (Sputnik) — The European Union has failed to protect its external borders from a huge inflow of migrants and cannot pretend anymore that immigration is what it wants, European Council President Donald Tusk confessed Thursday.

"We have lost our ability to protect our borders, and in this sense, our openness is not our conscious choice, but a proof of our weakness," Tusk said at the Madrid congress of the center-right European People's Party (EPP).

He stressed that no task was more important to the European Union’s integrity today than re-establishing control over Europe's external borders, "and not in order to make Europe into an inaccessible fortress, but to effectively protect [our] values."

"We cannot pretend any longer that the great tide of migrants is something that we want, and that we are conducting a well thought-out policy of open borders," Tusk stressed, calling on EU nations to work together for the sake of the security of their common borders.

The EU border agency Frontex estimates that over 710,000 migrants have arrived in the European Union since the start of this year.

Several EU countries initially relaxed entry regulations for thousands of refugees camping in transit countries, like Hungary, but eventually reinstated controls with other members of the borderless Schengen Area, saying that they could not cope with the surging number of arrivals.