The European Union's chief executive warned on Wednesday that the survival of Europe's "partially comatose" open border travel zone and its single currency were both at risk if member nations continue erecting internal barriers to keep refugees out.European Commission (EC) President Jean-Claude Juncker drew a direct link between the two key achievements of EU integration, telling the European Parliament the euro would be jeopardized if the Schengen passport-free travel system unravels. "If the spirit of Schengen leaves our lands and our hearts, we will lose more than Schengen. A single currency makes no sense if Schengen falls. It is one of the keystones of European construction," Juncker said.While there is no legal connection between the Schengen zone, which has 22 EU members and four from outside the bloc, and the 19-member eurozone, Juncker's warning reflected growing concern in Brussels that intra-EU tensions over migrants could reverse the post-World War Two drive for European unity. He sounded the alarm as some 1,500 migrants remained trapped in northern Greece unable to cross the border into Macedonia after western Balkans countries overwhelmed by the refugee flow began limiting their intake to Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis.The United Nations condemned the new restrictions with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon saying: "Profiling asylum seekers on the basis of their alleged nationality infringes the human right of all people to seek asylum, irrespective of their nationality, and to have their individual cases heard." Tens of thousands more migrants are stranded in Macedonia, Serbia and Croatia after Schengen zone countries further north built fences to seal their borders.New arrivals from Turkey to the Greek Aegean islands have slowed this week despite fair weather in a possible sign of more effective Turkish action to clamp down on people smugglers. On Sunday, only 155 people arrived on Kalymnos, Megisti, Lesbos, Chios and Kos, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said. In November, an average of 4,500 people was arriving each day. According to the IOM, at least 585 people drowned trying to cross the Aegean Sea this year.Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is due in Brussels on Sunday for a summit with EU leaders meant to seal a joint action plan under which European countries will provide 3 billion euros in aid to help keep refugees in Turkey. But days before the meeting, senior EU officials said a deal had not been finalized, with the funding, the pace at which Ankara's long-stalled EU membership talks can advance and whether Brussels can deliver on its promise of easier travel for Turks all unresolved, EU and Turkish officials said.German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country has borne the brunt of hundreds of thousands of migrants who have poured into Europe from the Middle East and Africa this year, said the open border system would only endure if EU member states accepted a permanent, mandatory quota system for sharing in the resettlement of refugees.In the northern Greek town of Idomeni, a group of Iranian asylum seekers on hunger strike, many nearing collapse, sat in the rain on the train tracks with their shirts off. Nearby, about 200 to 300 Algerians and Moroccans faced Macedonian border guards, chanting "Mrs. Merkel, please help us!" Mohammed Merka, a Somali prevented from crossing the Greek-Macedonian border, told Reuters: "We are human beings and we have escaped war. If they want us to go back to war, let them take us back to war. But there is no way we are going back; we will only die. If they want us to perish here, we will perish here. All our lives we have been refugees. We have never seen peace."The Schengen zone has come under immense pressure as hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing war and poverty have streamed across the continent's largely unguarded southern maritime borders in search of security in Europe. With Greece in particular struggling to contain the human tide, countries from Hungary and Slovenia in the south to Denmark in the north have put up temporary border controls to stem the flows, making passport-free travel harder than at any time in decades.Even Sweden, which welcomes the largest number of refugees per capita of any European nation, threw in the towel on Tuesday, saying it had no choice but to impose new restrictions. Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Asa Romson held back tears as she and Prime Minister Stefan Lofven announced tighter border controls and asylum rules in a bid to reduce the number of arrivals and force other EU states to take in more refugees. Lofven said the situation is untenable. Next-door, Norway said it too was tightening controls.The majority of migrants come from the Middle East and Africa. The turmoil in the Middle East and the five-year war in Syria have led many people to flee the conflict in an attempt to seek security and shelter in a more prosperous and peaceful country, such as one in Europe. However, Europe has been slammed for lacking a collaborative response to the crisis.