Theresa May demands action on firearms trafficking after Paris attacks

“We asked for this meeting because Europe has lost too much time over a number of urgent points and today we want Europe to take the decisions needed”, the French Interior Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve said.

It came as the European Commission bowed to French fury and agreed to rewrite the Schengen code to ensure the systematic security screening of every EU traveller before they can enter the continent – a further erosion of the principle of free movement but something Mr Cazeneuve said was “crucial” to defend against terrorism.

“These controls will have to be carried out through an obligatory consultation of the national and European passes, the Schengen Information System and the Interpol Information System, which contain vital information about global arrest warrents”.

The deadly attacks in Paris, seen as the work of the Islamic State militant group, and the impact of thousands of migrants into Europe fleeing conflict and hardship in the Middle East, have triggered an internal debate on the merits and disadvantages of the Schengen area.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said that three bodies were discovered in the flat, Abaaoud including suspected mastermind.

The EU interior ministers are also expected to decide to create a European counterterrorism center that would become operational in January. Officials have said a few may have taken advantage of the large influx of refugees from Syria over the summer to evade normal border controls. “But there are reasons to suspect that this is about terrorist intentions, or someone supplying weapons to terrorists”, said Joachim Herrmann, the Bavarian interior minister.

Extremist groups like ISIS, she argued, “aren’t anxious about the prospect of more air strikes, more civilian casualties, more callousness on the borders of Europe, more security clampdowns at its heart”.

European Union ministers agreed on Friday to get tough on border security after the devastating Paris attacks, as prosecutors said a third body had been found following a police raid on the ringleader’s hideout.

Croatian police say he was checked at a refugee centre on October 8.

France’s national police chief says that the whereabouts of a key fugitive in last week’s Paris attacks is unclear.

Of the more than 350 people wounded in the attacks, scores are in critical condition, and medical authorities have warned that the death toll is likely to rise.

Abaaoud, a Belgian national, was killed in a ferocious police onslaught Wednesday on an apartment building in the Saint-Denis suburb of Paris, where the attacks began on November 13 with three explosions outside the Stade de France stadium.

“Those terrorists hide, don’t communicate with the same phones we have”, Valls said. We can’t take any more time.

After the meeting, France’s Cazaneuve said, “Terrorists are crossing the borders of the European Union”.

“I’m still reeling, because these are the neighborhoods where we young people go out a lot, places we know well”, student Sophie Garcon said as she looked at tributes left outside the Le Carillon bar.

The French interior minister also reiterated his call for strong action in the Balkan countries against illegal arms trafficking and for the full use of databases like SIS, the Schengen information system, since many countries do not put passengers’ data in on a systematic basis.

“One month is not serious”, Cazeneuve said, adding that “PNR is essential to follow up on fighters returning from abroad”.