Austria plans border fence as migrants threaten EU movement

While EU rules do allow the temporary re-imposition of border controls when faced with massive influxes, the new efforts send a worrying political message that countries are no longer committed to open borders, said Camino Mortera-Martinez, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform in Brussels.

“Unless something is done, we will see more and more fences and border controls, and then we will have a Schengen crisis, and if we have a Schengen crisis, we will have an EU crisis,” said Mortera-Martinez.