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In an announcement tonight eurocrats said there was no justification for keeping police checkpoints at frontiers within the bloc and said they must be removed by the end of the year.

The diktat means that Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway will all have to swiftly find alternative ways to police irregular movements of people across their borders.

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France, which has had checkpoints in place at its borders since the November 2015 terror attacks, is the only country to be exempted as it is still in a state of emergency.

Announcing the measure tonight, the EUs migration chief Dimitris Avramopoulos said the time had come to return to a normal functioning of the Schengen area.

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He added that the five member states, which have been given a final six month extension to get their border controls in order, had been made aware of what was expected of them.

The Greek official said: Schengen is one of the greatest achievements of the European project and the most tangible example of European integration.

We must do everything to safeguard protect and defend it. But the only way to do this is in a joint, European and coordinated way.

What we propose today is to gradually phase out temporary internal border controls whilst at the same time strengthening the usual, proportionate police checks across the territory of the member states.

This will be the last prolongation

EU migration chief Dimitris Avramopoulos

Mr Avramopoulos warned: These temporary border controls, and this goes for all internal border controls, should be exceptional, proportionate and as a last resort for a strict and a limited period.

This will be the last prolongation. No more than the next six months. They [member states] know that this is the last prolongation.

However, the member states will not be granted any additional powers to police their borders above and beyond what was already in place two years ago when the migration crisis first began.

Instead Mr Avramopoulos said national authorities should make use of the existing police powers more effectively and cited the example of increasing camera checks on motorway traffic.

Eurocrats said the border controls could be lifted because the blocs external frontiers, which are not patrolled by a centralised Brussels coastguard, are more secure.

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First Vice-President Frans Timmermans said: "Thanks to our joint efforts, our external borders are now stronger and more secure. By working together it is possible to have both security and freedom of movement.

This means that in six months' time we will get back to a fully functioning Schengen area without internal border controls."

The five countries, which all saw unprecedented levels of migration via the Western Balkans route through 2015 and 2016, last had their permission to carry out internal checks renewed in February this year.

A controversial and vulnerable deal between the EU and Turkey has seen the number of people arriving in Greece plummet to just two per cent compared to at the height of the migrant crisis.

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BORDER BOMBSHELL: Brussels orders EU countries to SCRAP internal checks within six months - Express.co.uk

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The unprecedented migrant crisis in the Mediterranean has sparked the invention of several NGOs, who have launched their own rescue ships. Yet critics in Italy have denounced their invention as a racket that must be stopped.

Sicilian prosecutor Carmelo Zuccaro claimed to have evidence that there are direct contacts between certain NGOs and people traffickers in Libya.

I am 100 percent in agreement with prosecutor Zuccaro

Angelino Alfano

Mr Zuccaro's remarks come just days after Italy's parliament approved a measure to speed up asylum proceedings for migrants processed in Italy.

Minister of Justice Andrea Orlando, refuted the debate and said: It is not appropriate to make up a story saying (aid organisations) working in the Mediterranean are colluding with people smugglers because that is a lie.

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A migrant gestures from behind the bars of a cell at a detention centre in Libya

I hope the Catania prosecutor's office will let its investigations speak for it because I think it's the best way to clarify things quickly.

But not long afterwards, the Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano contradicted Orlando, and said that he agreed 100 per cent with the allegations Zuccaro made.

Mr Alfano continued: I am 100 percent in agreement with prosecutor Zuccaro, as he asked a real question.

Those who become indignant at the drop of a hat are hypocrites.

Mdecins Sans Frontires, whose staff work on two rescue ships, dismissed the claims as baseless.

The United Nations Refugee Agency reported more than 37,000 people have been rescued making the crossing between Africa and Italy this year alone, which constitutes a 40 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2016.

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The UN also reported that at least 1,000 have died trying to make the trip.

Smugglers have been accused of launching boats packed with migrants from Libyan beaches with little fuel and cheap outboard engines, knowing full well that they are likely to be rescued once they reach international waters.

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Matteo Salvini, the leader of the right-wing Northern League political party, claims he intends to sue the Italian government.

He said: When 8,500 illegal immigrants arrive in three days, its clear that it is all organised.

It is quite clear that clandestine immigration is being organised. So weve decided to sue the government and the commanders of the navy and coast guard.

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Migrants '100 per cent being smuggled into Europe by NGOs', Italian minister agrees - Express.co.uk

MILAN Just like how an awardwinning entry about migrants had sparked off reflection at a World Press Photo showcase held in Singapore recently, another exhibition in Milan is offering further fuel for debate.

It offers, through the lens of 65 photographers, an original look at the topic of immigration and the migrant crisis.

The Restless Earth, organised by the Nicola Trussardi foundation, is being presented by the Visual Arts Programme of Milan's Triennale, the title alluding to works by Caribbean poet Edouard Glissant, on how different cultures can live together.

The exhibition - with works from photographers from some 40 countries including Syria and Turkey - is an "exercise in empathy, understanding and intercultural dialogue" to facilitate "a future together", the foundation said.

The works are designed to not only show migrants' experiences, but also hint at perceptions of new arrivals amid the worst refugee crisis Europe has known since World War II.

Italy has been at the front line of the crisis, receiving tens of thousands of migrants attempting the dangerous sea crossing from Libya in vessels that are often barely seaworthy.

Included in the exhibition, which runs through Aug 20, are 26 powerful images taken by Agence FrancePresse photographer Aris Messinis depicting their hazardous journeys.

Another powerful exhibit is Syrian Manaf Halbouni's Nowhere Is Home, comprising a car crammed full of objects to symbolise the transient existence of refugees with nowhere to call their own.

Also throwing into stark relief the human cost of the migrant crisis is an exhibit of passports, damaged mobile phones and other personal items from African refugees.

Hundreds of them drowned off Lampedusa, an island near Sicily, when their vessels capsized in 2013.

Milan itself is an industrial economic hub in the north of Italy, where the anti-immigrant Northern League has sought to extract political capital from the migrant crisis, a divisive issue across the country.

In January, tensions boiled over as residents at a migrant reception centre near Venice set the facility ablaze after the death of a female refugee, which residents blamed on a long delay in getting her medical treatment.

More than 1,000 migrants are thought to have died making the dangerous voyage from Libya to Italy so far this year, according to the United Nation's refugee agency.

Nearly 37,000 have been rescued and brought to camps around the country.

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Milan exhibition highlights migrant crisis - The Straits Times

This week, Germany's Interior Ministry released its 2016 crime figures, showing a dramatic increase inviolent crime, including a 14.3% rise inmurder and manslaughter, a 12.7% rise inrape and sexual assaults, and a 9.9% increase inserious assaults overthe previous year. The figures showed that illegal immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers were suspected ofhaving committing 174,438 crimes, a whopping 52.7% increase overthe previous year.

AP Photo/ Martin Meissner

Germany watchers say there's a clear connection betweenthis increase incrime and Chancellor Angela Merkel's open door policy towardimmigrants. German media, meanwhile, is considering whether the statistics will affect her chances inSeptember's parliamentary elections.

AFP 2017/ Christof Stache

Migrants arrive at the first registration point for asylum seekers in Erding near Munich, southern Germany, on November 15, 2016

Commenting onthe migrant crisis facing Germany and the rest ofEurope, RIA Novosti contributor and Europe observer Igor Pshenichnikov recalled that "observing the situation withrefugees inEurope overthe last ten or fifteen years, it can be argued that the authorities ofEuropean countries did not set outto confront the influx ofimmigrants."

AP Photo/ Allauddin Khan

"The Europeans continued tooperate underthis paradigm even atthe moment, two years ago, when the flow ofmigrants suddenly turned intoa tsunami, inconnection withthe wars inLibya, Syria and Iraq. It took some time beforeGerman authorities, who showed the most favorable attitudes towardimmigrants, came torealize the mistake they made in2015, when they declared all migrants welcome."

But chalking it all downto some kind of' mistake' isn't correct, Pshenichnikov noted. Behind Berlin's logic were macroeconomic calculations which went beyondthe interests ofordinary Germans.

REUTERS/ Hannibal Hanschke

The report explained that Germany's current fertility rates 160 births per 100 women, was far belowthat which would be necessary toreproduce the population (which requires a fertility rate of210 children per 100 women). Accordingly, the German government calculated that the country 'needs' an estimated 300,000 migrants new migrants each year, inorder topreserve economic stability upto 2060.

AP Photo/ Frank Augstein

A man holds up a poster of German Chacellor Angela Merkel before starting a march out of Budapest, Hungary, Friday, Sept. 4, 2015

"It's obvious," Pshenichnikov noted, "that withoutlaborers the economy will not work."

"But it's not so difficult toimagine what this will all lead toby 2060, either. If Chancellor Merkel's macroeconomic calculations are correct, the German economy will not experience shortages toits working population." However, if the migration trends continue, bythe time 2060 rolls around, "there will be much fewer actual Germans, forwhom all this is all supposedly being calculated, thanthere are today."

AP Photo/ Maurizio Gambarini/dpa

Even the simplest calculation of300,000 migrants per year means over12 million new arrivals by2060 tocomplement Germany's population of81 million. "But this calculation does not consider the difference inbirthrates betweenGermans and migrants, nor the fact that in2015-2016 alone, Berlin had 'fulfilled its migration plan' fornearly a decade."

These trends threaten tobring withthem tectonic changes toGermany's ethnic, culture and religious traditions aswell, Pshenichnikov stressed. Today, the analyst recalled, likemost EU members, Germany is facing the lowest birthrates inits history. "One ofthe main reasons forthisis the radical change" that has been observed "in Europe's cultural and religious traditions, or rather, their dissolution intothe semi-official ideology ofurban individualism," he added.

Sputnik/ Valeriy Melnikov

The resulting clash betweenthe cultural, social and religious norms that these people bring withthem and those ofGermany's native population inevitably lead tomisunderstandings and conflicts, the analyst added.

"For instance, why did the immigrants show themselves insuch a striking manner duringlast year's New Year's Eve celebrations inGermany particularly inthe infamous Cologne 'night ofrape'? Because they were brought upin different, more severe traditions, and consider Europeans, withtheir gender freedoms, tobe [a civilization that is] 'finished', fromthe moral standpoint, and thus not deserving ofrespect."

AP Photo/ Juergen Schwarz

Right-wing demonstrators hold a sign "Rapefugees not welcome - !Stay away!" and a sign with a crossed out mosque as they march in Cologne, Germany

Pshenichnikov emphasized that it's "for the same reason that it doesn't seem likely that immigrants will mix significantly withthe Europeans: the gulf betweenthe cultures and religions ofthe East and Europe is simply too wide. The newcomers not only do not wish tobe integrated intothe local culture; they deeply despise it assomething decadent and declining."

AP Photo/ Armin Weigel/dpa

The question, Pshenichnikov laments, is "who will this economic capital be left to?"

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Germany's Migrant Crisis: 'By 2060 There Will Be No Germany as ... - Sputnik International

CAIRO // Religious fundamentalism will continue to flourish if poverty, disease and the needs of refugees are not addressed, the audience at the International Peace Conference in Cairo was told.

The gathering, co-organised by Al Azhar and the UAE-based Muslim Council of Elders, came three weeks after bombings on Coptic churches in Egypt killed at least 45 people.

Its purpose was to call upon followers of different faiths to trust each other and work together to denounce extremism and promote peace. The conference drew political and spiritual figures from around the world.

The overriding message of the two-day event, which began on Thursday, was that offering citizenship to refugees and tackling wealth inequality was essential in thwarting the appeal of extremism.

Dr Mostafa Hegazi, a former adviser to the interim Egyptian president, Adly Mansour, said that povertys ramifications were not only felt financially but also had profound effects on peoples rationality.

"It leads to a poverty of thought, imagination and capacity," said Dr Hegazi, who is also the founder of an Egyptian think tank focused on issues of justice.

The link between violent extremism and extreme poverty is well established and inclined individuals to become racist and nations to resort to war, he said.

"Isnt it high time we tackled this serious institutional problem," he said.

"People are not machines that are forced to produce. Its time we educate people before they become cogs in the employment machine."

Rev Olav Fykse, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, said that extending citizenship to those in need would serve to provide people with the protection and rights that all people deserved, regardless of their backgrounds.

"Different people should have the same basis of security for their lives and their childrens lives," he said.

"We need something solid and clear as a platform of our lives together."

Basic human needs such as food, water, security, health, education and freedom to believe were all needed to ensure harmonious communities, he said.

Bishop Bola, who was representing Pope Tawadros II of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, called for further inclusion in communities.

"The colonial mentality worldwide has to end, such as is happening in Palestine," the bishop said.

The Coptic bishop appealed to countries to come to the aid of the oppressed and to narrow the gap between the rich and poor nations.

"I call on nations to address poverty because it is a fertile ground for violent environments," the bishop said.

The conference concluded yesterday with Pope Franciss visit to Al Azhar, the global seat of Sunni Muslim learning, the first visit there by a Roman Catholic pope.

tsubaihi@thenational.ae

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Tackle religious extremism by addressing migrant crisis, Egypt conference hears - The National