The European countries of the Schengen zone plan to fence off from the rest of the world with a steel wall – at least to allocate additional funding for this. Such information was presented by the publication Schengenvisainfo, which reported that a group of countries again appealed to the European Commission with the demand to “allocate more funds for border walls”, which caused a continuous debate in the European Union.
This group of countries includes Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Norway – they issued a joint statement calling on the EU to finance physical infrastructure in these countries with non-EU members – as it is not difficult to understand, it is Russia and Belarus “incl. physical barriers such as walls’. However, the “effectiveness and ethics of physical barriers” is still a matter of controversy in the European Commission.
The topic was raised as early as 2021 when twelve member states sent a letter to the European Commission, which argued that physical barriers were an effective measure to better protect the EU’s borders. Steel walls there were called “effective means of protection” and called on the EU leadership find funds for them.
The walls are already being built, the publication adds. Over the past eight years, member states have built more than 1,700 kilometers of walls to stop illegal border crossings by migrants and refugees.
The European Commission has also expressed willingness to fund border security measures such as video surveillance, sensors, vehicles, and buildings, not just physical walls. However, these eight states demonstrate the belief that the physical infrastructure of border protection, including physical barriers, should be financed from EU funds.