As the Schengen agreement expands to include Bulgaria and Romania, countries within the agreement are in conflict over illegal migrants crossing their borders, pushing the limits of how borderless the agreement actually is.
France and Italy share a common border that has seen emergency border controls enacted by France for nearly a decade, despite the internal border control being a supposed emergency measure meant to be temporary.
A Euronews report notes the growing pressure mounting between Italy and France as migrants often cross into France and are pushed back to the Italian border town of Ventimiglia, despite a ruling by the European Court of Justice stating that systematic pushbacks of migrants were illegal.
The report states that in 2023, as many as 40,000 illegal migrants were pushed back by French authorities as one retired builder named Filippo claimed he not only helped give migrants a ride back after being denied crossing into France but gave them “alternative routes” to crossing the border.
Some of the alternative routes involve crossing mountain passes in the Alps, a journey that can prove dangerous, especially in the winter months when temperatures drop. Since 2015, an estimated 50 people have died trying to cross into France from Italy.
The retired builder is not alone in helping migrants navigate the mountain passes as open border activists have been arrested in the past for leading migrants across the border.
France and Italy are not the only countries party to the Schengen agreement to introduce border checks in recent years either, as several other countries have enacted some sort of border control due to illegal migration or threats of terrorism.
Germany, once the country known in Europe for being the most welcoming to asylum seekers under former German chancellor Angela Merkel, has also enacted border controls as it has been faced with new surges of illegal arrivals in the past year that are approaching levels not seen since 2016.
In November of last year, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz extended border controls along the country’s borders with Austria, Switzerland, Poland, and the Czech Republic, though some were critical of the measure as being a temporary fix to a larger issue affecting all of Europe.
As so many countries within Schengen are utilising emergency border controls, the European Parliament has moved in the opposite direction by looking to restrict member states’ ability to enact their own border controls.
The Parliament’s left-wing majority backed the Schengen reform proposal that aims to restore the open borders of the Schengen agreement.
Swedish MEP Charlie Weimers, a member of the populist Sweden Democrats, was highly critical of the proposal to make it more difficult for member states to enact border controls, saying the proposal represented a blow to the sovereignty of member states.
“The functioning of the Schengen agreement is contingent upon mutual trust between member states. Free movement can only be restored when the external border is secured and a zero-tolerance policy towards all forms of illegal entry is implemented,” he said.
The conflict surrounding the scope of the agreement comes as both Bulgaria and Romania have been accepted into Schengen at the end of 2023, after already being members of the European Union since 2007.
The Netherlands had long opposed both countries joining the open borders agreement as governments had raised concerns about corruption and organised crime.
The future of the Schengen agreement appears in the air as, on paper, the agreement calls for open borders but in practice, member states continue to enact controls. The opposite seems true to the European Union’s external border which on paper is meant to be controlled but in practice continues to have rates of illegal entries not seen since the height of the 2015-2016 migration crisis.
The European Union border agency Frontex stated in December that a total of 355,300 migrants had entered the EU illegally in the first 11 months of 2023. The main increases were seen in the Central Mediterranean route to Italy, the Eastern Mediterranean route to Greece, and the West African route to the Spanish Canary Islands, which saw record numbers.
“2023 has seen a significant rise in the number of irregular border crossings, which increased by 17% in the first 11 months to reach over 355,300. This number has already surpassed the entire total for 2022, marking the highest value recorded since 2016,” the agency said.
