Origins

How did borders change in post-war Europe?

In the aftermath of the Second World War, several countries in Western Europe made successful attempts at sub-regional de-bordering. In 1952, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland started stipulating a string of agreements and conventions that gradually abolished the requirements for passports, visas and work permits. This process culminated with the agreement on the Nordic Passport Union in 1957. Iceland joined the union in 1966.

As early as 1944, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands began to work to ensure free movement of capital, goods, labour and services. In 1958, they signed the treaty establishing the Benelux Economic Union, which placed the free movement of people at the forefront of its agenda. On that basis, in 1960 it was agreed that the nationals of the three countries might freely enter and establish themselves in the territory of each contracting party, and should enjoy the same treatment of nationals of that state. While abolishing controls at the internal frontiers, they committed themselves to transferring them to the external borders; a common visa was established for the Benelux territory.

Meanwhile, in 1952, Great Britain and Ireland revived the Common Travel Area, created between 1923 and 1925 but suspended at the outbreak of the war in 1939. London and Dublin reduced controls at their common borders to a minimum and established close cooperation on migration policies.

How did the free movement of people in the European Communities start and develop?

The idea of abolishing internal border controls and guaranteeing free movement of people was also inherent in the process of integration between France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, which gave rise to the European Communities in the 1950s. A greater amount of heterogeneity, however, made it more difficult for them to achieve forms of internal de-bordering.

Between the late 1950s and the late 1960s, the European Community (EC) provided workers with a right of free movement but the first concrete plans for abolishing border controls at the Community level came only after the first enlargement, when Denmark, Great Britain and Ireland joined the EC in 1973. The proposal for establishing a passport union and gradually removing border controls on people travelling between Member States, put forward by the European Council meeting in Paris in 1974 and then developed in the Tindemans Report in 1975, marked a milestone in this respect.

Political considerations were important, if not decisive, in prompting these early developments: the abolition of border controls on people was considered a crucial way to achieve a European Union (EU) and create European citizenship. Against the backdrop of widespread economic and political protectionism, however, the establishment of a uniform passport was repeatedly postponed, and the abolition of border controls was temporarily put aside.

What was the road to the Schengen Agreement?

The process regained momentum in the early 1980s as a result of a combination of political and economic dynamics. The Community countries were then experiencing a phase of economic stagnation and a crisis in economic relations: international trade and financial flows within the Community, in particular, were steadily declining.

This economic situation, in turn, was undermining political cooperation and solidarity within the Community. In order to redress this, in 1982 the European Commission drafted a resolution on the easing of internal border controls on Community citizens, which was strongly supported by the Union of Industrial and Employers’ Confederations of Europe, the European Parliament and the Benelux countries.

While sharing the objective of relaxing controls at intra-Community borders, however, France and West Germany rejected the Commission’s draft resolution. The main reason for this opposition was that the document did not take into due consideration the complementary need to control immigration from outside the Community. The European Community did not have competence, and both Paris and Bonn were reluctant to give up sovereignty in this domain; moreover, they generally mistrusted the Southern European countries’ effectiveness in managing migration flows.

Denmark, Great Britain and Ireland were also sceptical about the very idea of giving up controls on their borders. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, in particular, was adamant that London was to maintain full sovereignty over its immigration and border management policy. In 1984, a dramatic intra-European traffic blockade due to protests from truck drivers helped to break the deadlock, making Member States even more acutely aware of the urgency to act.

How was the Schengen Agreement negotiated?

As the process continued to stagnate at the level of the European Community, in 1984, West Germany and the Benelux countries agreed on a political declaration in Neustadt an der Aisch, which announced the intention to reduce controls and obstacles at common borders. In the meantime, France and West Germany signed an agreement in Saarbrücken, which provided for the immediate abolition of controls on people and the easing of checks on vehicles.

Later on, the contracting parties were expected to transfer these controls to external borders, harmonise visa policies and legislation on foreigners, drugs, arms and passport delivery and strengthen cooperation between police and customs officials. After a failed Commission proposal for a Community directive to ease internal border controls on people and an important Memorandum sent by the Benelux countries to France and West Germany, these five countries negotiated a new, multilateral agreement.

Robert Goebbels, Luxembourg signatory of the agreement, on the historical circumstances:

Talks were short and relatively easy, although, when compared with France and West Germany, the Benelux countries considered abolition of internal border controls much more important than ‘complementary measures’ and wanted to keep together free movement of people and free movement of goods. Another important problem concerned the tolerant policy with regard to drugs pursued in the Netherlands, which worried both France and West Germany.

Negotiations culminated on 14 June 1985, when representatives of the Benelux countries, France and West Germany signed an agreement in Schengen which provided for the gradual removal of internal border controls subject to the introduction of measures to strengthen external border controls and to ramp up the fight against drug-trafficking, international crime and illegal immigration. The agreement was realised outside the European Community framework, though it was explicitly linked to European integration.

The agreement was signed by the State Secretaries Catherine Lalumière (France), Waldemar Schreckenberger (Germany), Paul De Keersmaeker (Belgium), Robert Goebbels (Luxembourg) and Wim van Eekelen (the Netherlands).

How was the Schengen Agreement implemented?

The Schengen Agreement was more a statement of intent than a detailed programme of action. As a consequence, the five founding members worked on a document aimed at establishing ‘compensatory measures’ to prevent the abolition of internal border controls from undermining security and encouraging irregular immigration, that is the entry of third-country nationals into a Schengen member state without complying with necessary requirements.

All founding members agreed on restrictive immigration, visa and asylum policies. At the same time, France and West Germany opposed the Dutch tolerant attitude towards soft drugs. More importantly, France and West Germany disagreed over the scope and nature of police and judicial cooperation. Whereas Paris was very cautious on this delicate issue, Bonn wanted to strengthen it, even at the cost of losing a part of its own sovereignty.

In the participating countries, the general public and the media began to take an interest in the projects, and critical debate ensued. Criticism was expressed against the lack of transparency in Schengen negotiations and security fears began to be voiced.

When the Communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe started collapsing in 1989, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl asked his counterparts in France and the Benelux countries not to consider the German Democratic Republic as a foreign country in relation to the Federal Republic of Germany and exempt Hungary and Czechoslovakia from visa requirements. Facing French opposition, West Germany went as far as to withdraw from negotiations and threaten not to sign the document until its requests were met.

A compromise was reached after the international agreement on German reunification. This paved the way to the signing of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement on 19 June 1990.

The document stated that internal borders might be crossed at any point without any checks on people being carried out. Nonetheless, if public policy or national security so required, contracting parties might decide that, for a limited period, national border checks might be re-established at internal borders. In order to compensate for the abolition of internal border controls, the document laid down common rules on crucial aspects of migration and asylum policies and made provisions for cooperation in police and security matters; it also established the Schengen Information System (see the chapter ‘Development’).

How was the Schengen Area established?

The adoption of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement did not coincide with the establishment of the Schengen Area. Not only was the Convention subject to ratification by all the contracting parties, it could not come into force until the preconditions for its implementation were fulfilled in all signatory states and checks at external borders were effective. Both these processes were more difficult to implement than had been expected.

Parliamentary ratification was lengthy and contentious in most countries, especially in France and the Netherlands. Meanwhile, France was particularly vocal in criticising its partners and demanding the fulfilment of all conditions prior to the entry into force of the Schengen Area. The main target was the alleged laxness at the external borders; this criticism was directed at Germany and even more at Italy, Greece and Spain, which, in the meantime, had signed the Schengen agreements.

In 1994, the five founding members, i.e. France, Germany and the Benelux countries, plus Portugal and Spain were considered ready to participate in the Schengen system. Despite lingering political disputes and concerns from national police forces, they formally established the Schengen Area on 25 March 1995.

‘Schengen mode d'emploi’ - a video report from 1995:

With the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty on 1 May 1999, the Schengen acquis, that is the whole legislation regulating the Schengen Area, was incorporated into the European Union framework. Ireland and the United Kingdom benefited from an opt-out included in the treaty, while Denmark obtained a different kind of opt-out. It was a member of Schengen but retained the right to decide whether or not to accept decisions agreed upon within the Schengen framework.