Although internal border controls would expire in mid-November, Austria, Denmark, Sweden and Germany have stated that they want to remain the current border controls in place.
The European Commission has said to assess the requests of the Member States, but does not support long term border controls as it wants to go back to Schengen. The Commission wanted to remove all internal border controls between the Schengen countries before the end of 2016.
The controls were allowed to remain in place for six months as a response to “a serious threat and to safeguard public policy and internal security” and could continue for a maximum of two years.
The internal border controls, however, negatively affect European shippers as they lead to delays and unpredictability. In February ESC, as the first of the involved stakeholders, send a letter to president Juncker stressing the importance of the internal market and the damaging effect of the reintroduction of border controls on European trade and transport.