Schengen Area

Greek authorities say a total of seven bodies, including those of two children, have been recovered from the sea off the eastern Aegean island of Kos after a boat carrying migrants or refugees sank early Jan. 27.

Rescue crews recovered the bodies of three men, two women, a boy and a girl. There were two survivors - a man and a woman.

Greece risks exit from the Schengen Area, a plan discussed at the informal meeting of internal, justice and migration ministers in Amsterdam on Monday. French daily Le Monde reports that the matter will be perused when the College of EU Commissioners convenes on Wednesday.

The College of Commissioners is expected to discuss tomorrow a draft on suspending the Schengen Agreement for Greece for two years, which will mean exclusion of Greece from the European zone, French newspaper  Le Monde reports.

The European Commission said Jan. 26 that it may eventually allow member states of the passport-free Schengen zone to reintroduce border checks for up to two years to cope with the migration crisis.

At a meeting in Amsterdam on Jan. 25 EU interior ministers had asked the Commission - the executive arm of the 28-nation European Union - about the possibility of extending the checks.

The Visegrad group of central European countries will hold a summit on Feb. 15 to discuss the migration crisis, Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka tweeted on Jan. 26, Reuters reported. 

The meeting of Czech, Polish, Hungarian and Slovak prime ministers will take place ahead of a Feb. 18-19 summit of European Union leaders at which the crisis will be assessed. 

Alternate Migration Policy Minister Yiannis Mouzalas on Monday criticized pressures on Greece concerning the refugee crisis, adding that Greece’s exclusion from the Schengen Zone would not solve any problems. He instructed the European Commission to explore a procedure to extend temporary internal border checks within the Schengen area for up to two years.

Financial Times article, titled “Greek debt is the key to the refugee crisis”, claims to provide a solution to solve two problems: Greek debt and the refugee crisis. The article by Gideon Rachman states that “it is time to think creatively about how these two problems could be linked into a diplomatic package that helps to fix them both. The broad outlines of the deal would be simple.

European Commission Spokesperson Natasha Bertaud says that there is no discussion concerning Greece leaving the Schengen Zone.

There are no plans to either exclude Greece from Schengen or for the “suspension” of the treaty for two years, European Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud said on Monday.

“No such possibility exists,” stressed Bertaud.

Financial Times insist on the “plan for Greece’s isolation” that European partners are thinking of putting into effect, which will mean that Europe will expulse Greece from Schengen area.