BERLIN: Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem warned Friday that a small group of EU countries may be forced to form a "mini-Schengen" if the bloc fails to resolve its migrant crisis. "I really don´t wish to have that. Such a step would have negative political and economic consequences for us all," he told German business newspaper Handelsblatt of the possibility of reducing the 26-member passport-free Schengen zone to a core group of just five or six countries. But Dijsselbloem argued that "we cannot maintain our social welfare state in the long term if the influx of asylum seekers goes on like that". Hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Asia and Africa have travelled to Europe, mostly via Greece and along the so-called Balkans route to northern Europe. The crisis has strained ties within the EU, with mostly newer members such as Hungary taking a firmly anti-migrant stance and northern countries like Germany welcoming those fleeing war. Urging member states to shoulder their fair share of the migrant burden, Dijsselbloem warned: "If the EU fails to better secure its external borders, then a smaller group of countries will do so.
