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Besides the economic supervisory Troika monitoring the state of the local economy every three months Greece has already got a supervisory Schengen group. The European Commission is not satisfied how the country fulfills its obligations under the Schengen Agreement. The experts will arrive in late May and will get down to work immediately. Airports inside the country will be in their focus, but also the lack of coordination between the services, guarding the external borders of the European Union. Well informed sources quoted by the daily Kathimerini said that it is possible the passport checks for Greek citizens who travel to other Schengen countries to be renewed.

"The free movement of people within the Schengen area should be retained for Greece, because it is a core value of the European Union," answered the Minister of Citizens Protection Christos Papoutsis.

Official Athens was unpleasantly surprised by the proposal of the French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to revise the Schengen Agreement. At the same time, Greece hopes that a possible revision of the Agreement could lead to a change of the policy towards illegal immigrants.

"Greece believes that illegal immigrants should be allocated among member states according to geographic and demographic criteria. Due to its geographical location Greece must perform much more duties guarding the external borders of the European Union," added Christos Papoutsis. He described the current practice illegal immigrants to stay in the country they entered first as typical for the period before the establishment of the European Union and insisted that their burden should be shared between all member states.

On his part, the President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso made it clear that he does not exclude the powers of the states to be extended to a certain degree with the aim of effectively fighting illegal immigration.