BRUSSELS (AP) – France called Friday on its European Union partners to take immediate and decisive action to toughen the bloc’s borders and prevent the entry of more violent extremists.
“We can’t take more time. This is urgent,” Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.
One week after the coordinated attacks claimed by Islamic State that killed 129 people in Paris, Cazeneuve and the other EU interior and justice ministers opened an emergency meeting on the next steps to take to prevent more bloodshed. France and Belgium were expected to urge their EU partners to tighten gun laws, toughen border security and choke off funds to extremist groups.
“Terrorists are crossing the borders of the European Union,” said Cazeneuve, underlining why the 28-nation bloc must move forward on a long-delayed system for collecting and exchanging airline passenger information. That system would allow the EU to better track extremists and foreign fighters coming and going from Syria and Iraq, he said.
Britain’s interior minister, Theresa May, said the EU must quickly implement beefed-up border security measures already agreed on, saying there was a clear link between tightened borders and the safety of Europeans.