"If Europe's internal barriers go back up, it will put even more pressure on growth. Ultimately, it is the people who will pay the bill," DW quoted Bertelsmann Chief Executive Officer Aart De Geus as saying.
Longer waits at border checkpoints would lead to higher production costs for companies and higher prices for consumers.
Under a worst case scenario, with the reintroduction of EU border controls pushing import prices up three percent, the bloc’s largest economy Germany could stand to lose as much as 235 billion euros between 2016 and 2025, France – around 244 billion and the European Union in general – up to 1.4 trillion, the Prognos AG study warned.
Six of the 26 Schengen area nations, including Germany, have reinstated temporary border checks in a bid to prevent hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa from looking for a better life in Europe.
