European Affairs
Towards a Crisis-Proof Schengen Area: Post-Covid and Beyond by
Joao Bessa Pereira, Virginia Izzo, Claudia Quinn and Ela Rautner
Freedom of movement has been enshrined as one of the European Union’s (EU) four freedoms in Article 3 of the 1957 Treaty of Rome.1 The right to travel, live, and work in any Member State thus became a fundamental pillar of the European Community. Despite the Treaty of Rome’s commitment to freedom of movement, border controls persisted. It was only with the 1985 Schengen Agreement that national governments formally committed themselves to eradicating all border controls by 1995.2 However, since then, the borderless Schengen area has often been challenged. Since the 2015 Migrant Crisis many Member States have “temporarily” reintroduced border controls, pursuant to Article 25 of the Schengen Border Code (SBC).3 In 2019 alone, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Germany, France, and Sweden closed their external borders citing reasons that ranged from large migrant influxes, to terrorist threats and cross-border crime.4 However, it is the Coronavirus crisis that marked the closest case that the Schengen Area has ever been
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to disintegration.5 The Coronavirus pandemic saw unprecedented rates of internal border closures across the European Union. As of March 2020, 21 Schengen Area states had closed their borders.6 The following period ushered in restricted or prohibited travel and was marked by instances of EU citizens being stranded abroad, as well as, delays, traffic congestion, and difficulties transporting goods across borders.7 In the face of these various cross-border crises, the EU’s reflex was to allow the benefits of open internal borders to ebb into the background. In its place emerged uncoordinated, unilateral solutions by Member States. Though there are many lessons to be learned from the Coronavirus crisis, the value of open borders within the EU might be the most significant. Indeed, between 2015 and 2017, 82.4% of EU citizens reported that they support the freedom of movement8, whilst, economically, a two-year suspension of
