Refugees arrive by train at the transit center for refugees near northern Macedonian village of Tabanovce, continuing their journey to Serbia, Friday, Feb. 12, 2016. In a dramatic response to Europe's gravest refugee crisis since World War II, NATO ordered three warships to sail immediately Thursday to the Aegean Sea to help end the deadly smuggling of asylum-seekers across the waters from Turkey to Greece. -AP

BRUSSELS: Documents seen by The Associated Press show that European Union countries are poised to restrict passport-free travel by invoking an emergency rule for two years due to the migration crisis.

Each of the 26 countries in the open-travel Schengen Area is allowed to unilaterally put up border controls for a maximum of six months. That limit can be extended for up to two years if a member nation is found to be failing to protect its borders.

The documents show that EU policymakers are poised to declare that Greece is failing to sufficiently protect its border. Some 2,000 people are still arriving daily on Greek islands in smugglers' boats from Turkey. A European official showed the documents to the AP on condition of anonymity because the documents are confidential.

Deportation

Czech President Milos Zeman, known for his anti-migrant rhetoric, yesterday called for the "deportation" of economic migrants and suspected terrorists amid what he called the EU's "complete failure" to tackle the migrant crisis.

The 71-year-old leftist has repeatedly spoken out against the surge of migrant and refugee arrivals in Europe and even attended a rally against migrants and Islam organised by the xenophobic Bloc Against Islam movement last year. "The European Union has completely failed to solve the migration crisis," Zeman told a meeting of social democrats in the Slovak capital Bratislava.

"The only solution to the migrant crisis is the deportation of economic migrants and those advocating religious violence, religious hatred, in short, plotting terrorism."

Zeman added that his country would welcome all migrants willing to integrate but said that "Islamic migrants are impossible to integrate and assimilate into European culture," repeating a controversial opinion he first aired last month. "Political correctness is a synonym for a lie."

Late last year, Zeman called the surge in refugee numbers "an organised invasion" of Europe and urged young men from Iraq and Syria to "take up arms" against the Islamic State (IS) group instead of running away. Surveys show that most Czechs believe their EU and NATO state of 10.5 million people should not accept refugees from war-torn countries.

But few asylum seekers have chosen to stay in the Czech Republic and EU neighbours Poland and Slovakia, while Hungary last year built a fence to deflect a migrant wave heading from the Balkans westwards to wealthier EU members such as Germany.

A million migrants arrived in Europe last year-most from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria-in the continent's worst refugee crisis since World War II, while another 70,000 have arrived this year. The influx has caused tensions between EU members and has given a boost to far-fight, anti-immigration groups across the continent. -Agencies