• Denmark to reintroduce border controls

BRUSSELS, May 13, 2011 (AFP) - The European Union executive threatened legal action Friday against Denmark over its plan to patrol its borders with Germany and Sweden, saying this may breach EU freedom of movement laws.

The European Commission, the guardian of EU treaties, "will, if needed, use the tools at its disposal to guarantee the respect of EU law," said Cecilia Malmstroem, the commissioner responsible for home affairs.

Denmark, where the populist far-right is an increasingly significant force, suddenly announced the measures this week, causing outrage in some EU quarters as the country is a signatory to the 25-nation Schengen border-free area.

Copenhagen said the controls would see travellers stopped by Danish customs officers in the case of suspicion of cross-border criminal activity such as drug-trafficking.

The EU's Swedish home affairs commissioner said she was open to dialogue with Copenhagen, but stressed the authorities there must "refrain from taking unilateral steps and make sure that any measures taken are in line with the relevant law."

At her disposal following detailed probes are infringement proceedings -- a first step against a state considered in violation of EU law, which could, although only after years, result in the state being taken to the European courts.

Her warning came as the head of the commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, too voiced "important doubts" over Denmark's decision in a letter Friday to Danish Prime Minister Lars Lekke Rasmussen.

Barroso said a first legal assessment of the move "raises important doubts about whether the proposed measures, if implemented in the 'intensive and permanent' way that has been announced, would be in line with Denmark's obligations under European and international law."

He cited in particular the obligation to respect "free movement of goods, persons, services and capital, and the provisions of the Schengen Borders Code."

Barroso insisted in his letter that "systematic" intra-EU controls of goods or people were banned under the bloc's freedom of movement legislation.

Member states "may however make spot checks where this is justified by over-riding public interests," he said, citing in example the enforcement of tax legislation.

But in such cases, members of the 27-nation bloc must be able to demonstrate that measures were indispensable, he wrote.

"In so far as the measures announced would be implemented in a way that amounted to the introduction of systematic frontier controls, they would appear to be contrary to the Treaty freedoms," he added.

Lawmakers in the European Parliament too slammed the new restrictions, with its president, former Polish prime minister Jerzy Buzek, saying "we must not destroy Schengen."

Attending talks in Brussels Thursday, Denmark's Integration Minister Soren Pind dissociated the move from wider troubles afflicting the Schengen area that offers unfettered travel to 400 million citizens.

"This has nothing to do with personal passport controls," he said.

"I think that when this model is studied carefully, everyone will see that it is, if I may quote Shakespeare, much ado about nothing."

The EU's external borders have been under strain for some time in Greece, where the debt-stricken government has struggled with an influx of migrants sneaking in from neighbouring Turkey, and guards have been sent in from other EU states to help manage the frontier.

But since the Arab Spring uprisings, France and Italy have lobbied intensively for the temporary return of internal borders to stop migrants from across the Mediterranean flooding the Schengen area.