(Image Source: Novinite)

BY JACKIE MEJIA AND BRICE SANDER

One country’s problem quickly became all of Europe’s. After thousands of Tunisian migrants flooded France, the country cried foul on the 26-year-old Schengen Agreement. Euronews catches us up on the controversy.

“Silvio Berlusconi is hosting Nicolas Sarkozy in Rome to seek a joint way of managing the flow of migrants coming from troubled North Africa. Paris has said it wants to re-examine Europe’s 25-country open-borders Schengen agreement through which immigrants have been entering the south of France from Italy.”

A writer for The Daily Mail analyzes the situation by writing that France is taking a position on the treaty to benefit itself, not on what’s best for the other EU countries

“President Sarkozy is leading demands for Schengen to be reformed.  In other words, the open movement permitted by Schengen is only a good thing for Europe when it is a good thing for France.”

But a blogger for the Wall Street Journal argues this might be the wake-up call Europe needed.

“Publicly questioning a cornerstone of the EU’s unified economy, however, is an effective way of getting other members to stop treating immigration as a peripheral problem. … Schengen’s provisions for dealing with undocumented migrants were feeble … and Italy and France have taken it upon themselves in recent months to show just how the accord’s dysfunction can play out.”

As The Guardian reports, Italy took the first step in making this more than a peripheral problem. And the reaction? Not so great.

“Furious at the failure of other EU countries to ‘share the burden,’ the Italians granted visas to the immigrants enabling them to move elsewhere in the EU. The Germans and the Austrians complained. The Belgians accused Rome of ‘cheating’ on the Schengen rulebook. The French government promptly closed a part of the border with Italy briefly, re-erecting passport controls to halt trains.”

And as France 24 suggests, should anyone really be all that surprised? This is Sarkozy we’re talking about.

“Only a serious threat to public order or national security can be used to justify the reintroduction of border patrol. That measure can only be enforced for a maximum period of 30 days. President Sarkozy has already set a precedent for this provision, as Interior Minister in 2005, he reintroduced border controls after suicide bombers attacked London’s transport network, killing 52 people.”

While some still question whether this even involves national security, the Tunisian immigration issue now bleeds beyond the Schengen Territory’s border. France set up refugee camps for Tunisians in Britain after announcing it can no longer “afford” the influx.