The European Union's bid to limit members' unilateral border controls within the passport-free zone met resistance from France, Germany and Spain this week.

The foreign ministers of those countries Tuesday rejected a proposal by the European Commission to assert more control over how member states could implement internal border controls inside the Schengen Zone, covering 22 EU countries, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.

Since 1995, the Schengen agreement has given residents of EU members the freedom to travel between the countries without having to produce passports. But growing tensions due to waves of immigrants coming into the bloc has tested the limits of those freedoms.

Thousands of North African refugees spilling into Italy in the wake of the Arab Spring upheavals this year and others from the Middle East prompted national leaders, led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, to seek a new mechanism that would allow re-imposition of border controls to bolster security.

Amid a growing anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe, they are asking for the right to declare migration-related emergencies in order to re-impose border controls.

But Brussels has responded by seeking to clamp down on unilateral border restrictions. The European Commission is proposing to only allow member states to reinstate border controls for a maximum of five days before they would have to seek authorization from Brussels, the Financial Times reported.

The plan is to be adopted by the commission Friday and it brought a pre-emptive denunciation from the interior ministers of France, Germany and Spain, who issued a common statement Tuesday blasting the measure.

"We believe that respecting (this) core area of national sovereignty is very important to the member states. We therefore do not share the European Commission's views on assuming responsibility for making decisions on operational measures in the security field," the statement said.

Decisions on whether to reintroduce temporary checks at the internal borders, it added, are "based on an intensive assessment of the national security situation, which can only be carried out by the member states on the basis of the expertise and resources of their security authorities."

The commission's home affairs spokesman, Michele Cercone, told the EUobserver last week that it's important for the security of Europe for the EU executive to have control of when internal borders can be tightened.

"We have to move to a European system if we want Schengen to be safeguarded and guaranteed," he said.

The new Schengen rules will have to be approved by the European Parliament, where they are likely to receive a warm reception from parties that have already signaled approval for more power for Brussels, the Financial Times said.

They see it as a way to combat the growing wave of anti-immigrant anger in Europe as native workers face a tightening labor market and government-imposed austerity measures are imposed in the wake of the financial crisis.

"The zeitgeist has changed since the days when the EU created Schengen," Heather Grabbe, director of the Open Society Institute in Brussels, told the newspaper. "Law and order populism is on the rise in many member states.

"The risk is that citizens won't realize that the benefits the EU brought them -- like freedom of movement and protection from discrimination -- are being eroded until it's too late."

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