Schengen’s Greatest Failure

In 1985, representatives from five Western European nations convened aboard a riverboat in Schengen, Luxembourg, to commemorate the elimination of border checkpoints. This marked the beginning of the Schengen Agreement, which aimed to foster solidarity between their peoples by eliminating obstacles to free movement, creating a borderless zone that embodied liberal internationalism's principles.

Four decades later, the Schengen Agreement has proven highly successful, expanding to encompass 29 countries and over 450 million people. While it continues to benefit those who travel, study, shop, and live across borders, facilitating cross-border movement in mere hours without stopping their vehicles, its role as a tool for building European solidarity has been deemed a failure.

This failure was recently highlighted when an estimated 60,000 migrants from Morocco surged into Ceuta, a Spanish exclave on the North African coast, which, despite not being part of the European continent, gives migrants access to all 29 Schengen countries. Ceuta, with a population of 83,000, saw migrants either swim or scale fences to enter.

Several dozen migrants lost their lives in the process. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez condemned the event as an "attack" against Spain's territorial integrity and vowed to repel the migrants, over half of whom have already been turned back. The incident drew criticism from Spain's domestic opposition, the White House, and other European capitals, including Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Meloni called for a suspension of Spain's Schengen membership, a move that Spain firmly rejected, while France increased border checks and Austria considered border closures. Despite these actions, the piecemeal measures to control borders are deemed insufficient, and calls for a suspension of Schengen membership persist.