Merkel’s Claim on Possible Schengen Failure 'Attempt to Put Pressure' on EU

On Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that if the EU member states failed to redistribute migrants throughout the union, the future of the Schengen agreement would be called into question.

MOSCOW (Sputnik), Anastasia Levchenko — German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s statements on the possible collapse of the Schengen Area unless the ongoing migrant crisis is solved was a way to call for more action from EU states, Georg Mayer, member of the European Parliament from Austria told Sputnik Tuesday.

"Schengen is one of the main EU establishments… I think the statement by Merkel is just a way to make others move, for example to take more refugees. She just wanted to put some pressure on the others," Mayer said.

Mayer believes that the Schengen agreement will remain in place; he considers the introduction of partial controls at national borders to be useful. For this reason, his party, the Freedom Party of Austria, hopes to hold a referendum in the country on the issue of its membership of the Schengen Area.

"Because we recognize that we have a lot of criminals coming from outside," Mayer said.

The Schengen Agreement was signed on June 14, 1985, leading to the creation of Europe's borderless space. Most EU member states, as well as four non-EU countries, are members of this zone.

Europe is experiencing a massive migration crisis, as thousands of people attempt to cross into the bloc, fleeing violence in their home countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

In order to tackle the crisis the European Commission proposed to introduce a mandatory quota system to relocate and resettle undocumented migrants and refugees within the bloc, which was rejected in June by several European nations.