New Delhi, June 7 -- The word came back quickly from Luxembourg. When German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt was asked on Thursday whether Berlin would now lift its controls at the Schengen Area's internal borders, his answer was single and unambiguous: "No."

Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, and Sweden - recommending that each begin winding down the internal checks that have accumulated, in some cases, well beyond the legal limits the Schengen Borders Code envisioned.

Magnus Brunner, the EU Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration, framed the moment as one the bloc had been working toward for years. Irregular crossings into the European Union fell by roughly 40 percent in the first...