Schengen and European Security

Denmark, for example, as a member of the Schengen Agreement, applies the stringent security controls adopted by all Schengen member countries for those entering the Schengen zone, which include a requirement that no United Nations listed person from another country enter the region.

The European Union guarantees its citizens freedom of movement within the territory of its 25 Member States, while the Schengen Agreement has eliminated border controls between its parties, while strengthening controls at the external Schengen area border.

In addition, Denmark enters the name of all United Nations listed persons with sufficient identifying information, whether from a Schengen or non Schengen State, on the Danish criminal register with a permanent prohibition to enter the country.

The Schengen Agreement providing for passport free transit is what makes freedom of movement for people meaningful. But, given the inability of participating states to control their borders with non EU countries, Germany and other Schengen members have temporarily reinstated controls.

The Team noted in its second report (S 2005 83, para. 135) that the European Union, as the most developed of these zones, guarantees its citizens freedom of movement within the territory of its 25 member States, while the Schengen Agreement eliminated border controls between many of the European States while strengthening controls at the external Schengen area border and increasing police and judicial cooperation within the Schengen system.

For more information about EU and the Schengen Agreement, see europa.eu.int comm justice_home fsj freetravel frontiers wai fsj_freetravel_schengen_en.htm.

Greece, for example, also participates in the Schengen system to implement internal and external controls for the region.

The Swiss agreed by referendum on 5 June 2005 to join the Schengen Agreement (see www.europa.admin.ch nbv referendum e ).

This two part approach utilizing Schengen wide restrictions to exclude listed persons from outside the Schengen zone, while maintaining national restrictions to limit the movement of listed aliens within the zone may serve as a model for other States in established or developing border free or visa free regions.

Persons on the Consolidated List, whether or not from another EU or Schengen State, are barred from entry into Greece.

In addition, Switzerland has signed an agreement to join aspects of the EU and Schengen systems, but has not yet ratified it.

In implementing the travel ban, the Schengen States address the absence of internal border controls through measures such as enhanced police and judicial cooperation.

The European Union has 25 member States, while the Schengen Agreement covers 13 EU and two non EU member States (see S 2005 83, para.

Rather than attempt to control the masses of tourists and business travelers entering the country from all sides essentially an exercise in futility in Switzerland the country decided to focus police resources specifically on security threats. By joining Schengen, the Swiss police also gained access to the Schengen Information System and other important European databases on criminal suspects, stolen cars, and more.

In addition to the border control changes, the Schengen Agreement establishes a common visa policy for Member States and enhances cooperation between police and judicial authorities.

So, will Europe commit to moving toward political union, and thereby address what has remained missing, despite the single market, the euro, and the Schengen Agreement s elimination of internal borders?

Accordingly, if an individual on the Consolidated List resides within an EU or a Schengen State, he may be able to travel freely across most of Europe, unless hindered by legal obstacles.

She will continue to emphasize close relations with France because there is no alternative Britain, absent from the euro zone and the Schengen border regime, remains the odd man in of the EU.

But Merkel s failure to offer those refugees safe passage has exacerbated the chaos. Subsequently reimposing border controls within the supposedly border free Schengen Area set a terrible precedent, prompting Germany s neighbors to do likewise.

The parties to the Schengen Agreement include the EU States of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden and two non EU States, Iceland and Norway.

Since the Team's second report, the European Union and Schengen member States have continued to discuss the matter with Committee members and the Team in meetings in Brussels and at a European Union seminar in New York.

It is not only possible to have both openness and security the former can actually bolster the latter. The Schengen Area s members need to recognize that the security rationale for abolishing internal borders remains as compelling today as it was when they joined.

Already, the controversy over Tunisian migrants in Italy has started to fray the political underpinnings that allow free movement in the Schengen area. The war in Libya, meanwhile, could lead to many more thousands of civilians fleeing the violence and needing international protection.

What the Schengen Area needs is a true European coast guard, with its own budget, ships, and personnel. The Mediterranean can be expected to remain the main security challenge for some time, owing both to illegal immigration and its proximity to terrorist training grounds.

The EU is thus caught between demands for more solidarity from the young in its southern members and dissatisfaction with open borders among the elderly in the north. It is tempting to try to mollify both groups by relaxing austerity and ditching the border free Schengen area.

On the European project, she is as committed to integration as her predecessors have been. She will continue to emphasize close relations with France because there is no alternative Britain, absent from the euro zone and the Schengen border regime, remains the odd man in of the EU.

No other freedom of movement or visa free zone has developed to the same extent as the European Union or Schengen, and the other zones do not appear to curtail the ability of individual States to control their borders with neighbouring States that are also within that zone.

Nothing, however, prevents smaller groups of member states from aiming at bolder goals through separate agreements, if their mutual trust and similarities encourage them to do it. After all, this was how the Schengen Treaty which later became part of the acquis communitaire (the body of EU law) came into being.

Similarly, a clear division between a refugee friendly west and a closed east would effectively end the Schengen Agreement, because the political disagreement would harden into a physical barrier blocking the free movement of people within the EU. Such a split would be as damaging to Europe s cohesion as a divided eurozone.

Of course, there are flaws in the Schengen system. Like the eurozone, the area began with only a small group of member countries, all of which had a similar outlook and capacity to implement common rules, but soon welcomed many others, some of which, it later became apparent, could not uphold agreed standards.

A related issue for the Committee's attention is the impact on the travel ban of the visa free and freedom of travel zones being established in different regions of the world, for example within the European Union and between those EU and non EU States that are party to the Schengen Agreement.

Thus, although the lack of border controls might make it easier for a listed person to violate the travel ban within the EU and Schengen States, any such violations that are discovered should be subject to penalty assuming the State could prove, for example, that the person knew he was on the List.

It should be remembered that when five countries Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands agreed in 1985 (in the village of Schengen, Luxembourg) to abolish border controls, they did not do so on a whim or because some politicians had a lofty vision. However symbolic the agreement may have been, symbolism wasn t the point.

Meanwhile, with the EU increasingly viewed as a source of economic crisis, political turmoil, and unwanted migrants, the risk that Britons will vote to leave in a referendum due before the end of 2017 is rising. Britain is already semi detached outside of Schengen and with opt outs from the euro and many home affairs matters (including asylum policy).

For the foreseeable future, no government will open its borders to all who want to enter. Indeed, there is only movement in the opposite direction Serbia and Hungary are building fences to keep migrants out, and there has been talk of reinstating border controls within the Schengen Area, which currently guarantees freedom of movement among 26 European countries.

Some two decades after border controls were first abolished under the Schengen Agreement which now includes 26 countries, including four non members of the European Union Germany has reinstated controls at its border with Austria, and France at its border with Belgium. The controls are meant to be temporary, and the vast majority of other borders remain open.

If the Schengen Area is to endure, it needs to evolve in a similar direction, establishing a common institution responsible for securing external borders, while reinforcing the framework for internal security. As it stands, defense of Schengen s external borders is up to individual member states, including one, Greece, that is already facing a devastating economic crisis.

Europeans made decisive progress on integration outside the scope of the EU treaties (but very much in the European spirit) when they agreed to open their borders with the so called Schengen Agreement (today a part of the EU treaties). Drawing on that successful experience, the eurozone should avoid the EU s original sin of creating a supra national structure that lacked democratic legitimization.

While the EU and Schengen States aim to ensure that their systems provide adequate protection against the travel of listed individuals, the Team has begun discussions with relevant national authorities, as well as regional officials, about this issue and intends to follow up with them and officials from other visa free zones to learn how they are instituting the travel ban.

In fact, the reinstatement of border controls seems to be an example of security theater a policy intended to make the public feel like something is being done. But, far from making Europeans safer, rolling back Schengen would actually hinder the fight against terrorism, because countries would be forced to devote valuable resources thousands of police officers, if the agreement were to be abolished altogether to checking documents at borders.