Spain Temporarily Seals Border To Keep Out Anti-EU Protesters

EU gave green light to bar anti-ECB protesters from entering country during summit

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, April 24, 2012

The European Commission has given Spain the green light to take the unprecedented move to temporarily suspend its open border policy with France under the Schengen agreement in a bid to curtail mass protests targeting a European Central Bank summit set to take place in Barcelona next week.
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“The Spanish Government has taken the decision for security reasons, upon the request made by the Catalan Minister for Home Affairs, Felip Puig, in charge of security in Catalonia. Police reports pointed to the possible involvement of foreign nationals travelling to the city to take part in potential violent street protests,” reports the Catalan News Agency.

The 1986 Schengen Protocol allows free movement of European citizens between countries who sign up to the agreement. The only way the policy can be suspended by an individual nation is if there exists “a serious threat to public order or domestic security.”

The suspension will come into effect on April 28th, four days before the ECB summit begins, and will remain in place until May 5th.

Anyone attempting to enter Spain from France during this period will face stringent security checks, and if individuals are judged to be “anti-system” protesters they will not be allowed to enter the country.

Since the member states of the European Union normally triumph the EU’s open border system as a hallmark of 21st century liberal democracy, it’s ironic that the one time the policy is temporarily suspended it is to prevent people from engaging in their democratic right to protest against European Central Bank technocrats who are exploiting the financial crisis they created to destroy national sovereignty in countries like Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy.

Just as the former Communist countries in Eastern Europe created a system of internal passports and border checkpoints aimed at keeping out, and in many cases keeping in, dissidents who they feared would use free speech to challenge authoritarian regimes, Spain is doing likewise.

The border controls will be complemented by a fleet of 6,500 extra policemen who have already been deployed onto the streets of Barcelona and will remain there until after the summit ends.

The authoritarian nature of this move comes as no surprise given the fact that, although requested by the Spanish government, it was the European Commission itself who had final say in approving the policy change, which it did without delay.

In other words, the EU gave the go ahead for Spain to suspend its open border policy in order to keep out anti-EU protesters.

This once again underscores the fact that the European Union is inherently undemocratic in nature and goes to every length to silence the free speech rights of its citizens.