Spain’s Interior Minister to Call for Tighter Border Controls in Europe

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve (R) welcomes his Spanish counterpart Jorge Fernandez Diaz (L) prior to an international meeting against terrorism at the Interior Ministry in Paris, France, 11 January 2015. Photo EPA/BGNES

Europe may have to tighten its border controls in order to deter Islamic fighters returning to Europe from the Middle East, Spain’s Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz has said.

Speaking ahead of a ministerial meeting on the issue in Paris, he told Spanish daily newspaper El Pais on Sunday: "We are going to back border controls and it is possible that as a consequence it will be necessary to modify the Schengen treaty.”

The Schengen borderless zone is comprised of  26 European countries, including 22 European Union member states.

Three days of terrorist attacks in Paris have left 17 people dead and dozens injured this week.

Following Wednesday’s massacre at the headquarters of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and the killing of a female police officer the following day, France's prime minister Manuel Valls on Friday admitted certain failings in intelligence had helped suspects long known to the authorities conduct their attacks.

Criticism has focused on the failure to follow more closely the two Kouachi brothers who carried out Wednesday's attack on Charlie Hebdo. One had been convicted on terrorism charges and the other was believed to have been linked up with Al-Qaeda forces while in Yemen. The US have placed them on its no-fly list due to their links to terrorist movements.

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