This move will inhibit the free movement of people and goods to and from the EU’s largest economy, the AfD’s recent electoral successes have shocked the establishment into implementing a stricter policy towards illegal immigration, and Poland’s eastern border is more secure than ever.
It is utter nonsense to claim that this measure will impede the freedom of persons and goods. The measure is the same as during the European Soccer Championship which was a huge success in catching criminals and terrorists. There are no restrictions for EU-citizens to move within the EU but no Member State is obliged under any treaty obligation to house criminals, terrorists or people without means. As for moving goods across the border, it is amazing how in the day and age of internet it is not possible to create special corridors (i.e. already existing roads, waterways and railroads) for these cross border movements of goods. In fact, quality of life in many EU countries would greatly improve if there were actual border controls with barriers and strip searches. Hungary is living evidence that fences and walls work.
I am always amazed that people want to organize their lives around 4 weeks of holidays a year when they cross a border, but apparently do not care about their lives in the other 48 weeks when they are at work and suffer from criminality, loss of trust in society, housing shortages, terrorist attacks and all these other so called blessings of the Brussles bureaucracy. European elites have the problem that gated communities are not yet acceptable amongst their sycophants in the MMS. As long as that situation exits they are forced to keep the mess they created somewhat under control.
It is not utter nonsense: it'll increase time and therefore cost, even if only marginally, but it could compound with time.
That said, I don't personally disagree with stronger border security, I'm just pointing out that Tusk for once made some pretty solid points.
The problem is also that ANYONE is allowed to move freely while inside Schengen, even if they're not an EU citizen because there's no way to check, and it's therefore exploited.
Ideally, countries wouldn't allow riffraff into their borders to infiltrate the rest of the EU, but they do for self-interested economic, political, and ideological reasons.
Schengen itself can in theory be reformed, but that's unlikely to occur in practice unless countries unilaterally or through their own coalitions implement dramatic reforms.
The interim period of this transition would likely be characterized by some financial shocks, fearmongering news, etc., but it's survivable and would be for the better in my view.
I don't know what ultimate form it would take, just that all countries can't be relied on to sacrifice for the common good by restricting entrance from non-members.
So either the status quo remains with all its problems, or drastic action is taken to change everything, but the transition will be painful, it's unrealistic to expect it to proceed smoothly.
Another important point is that the enemy is already inside Europe, and border controls by themselves aren't a solution if they're not paired with a comprehensive "remigration' policy, which the German elite won't dare to even half-seriously consider.
I'm also skeptical that checks along the official border crossings will completely reduce the problem of illegal immigrants entering Germany since they can still cross through unofficial ones.
The whole thing comes off to me as a political ploy in response to the AfD's latest electoral successes, not as a sincere initiative towards comprehensively resolving this problem.
Of course you are right, it is a movement out of despair and once the elections are over it will be business as usual until the next spree of murders. Ultimatly it will lead to a legitimacy crisis and the whole crumbling edifice will come down. What comes next is probably not a pretty picture if you look at the events from the past. Plenty of examples to ignore.
Many countries have had de-facto border controls for a while. They just haven't advertised it. Austria has had them for a while and when I was driving through there was a German border check (from Austria into Germany) already in January of this year.
And of course we quickly forget that during COVID years some borders were either temporarily closed or very hard to cross (say you didn't have a vaccine certificate).
You should make a distinction between free movement and free establishment. i.e. starting to live somewhere. The latter is restricted by performing an economic activity. Hence the possibility to keep out the paupers. The free movement of persons within the Schengen zone does not preclude any authority to do ID-controls at any place and time and have so called flying border controls who can stop any vehicle and or persons within 100 kms of a border and check for criminality. Notably the French do this in their fight agains cheap Asian copies of French luxury goods. It is that for political reasons these the mechanisms were not used because the concept of a border is tied to a nation state and national sovereignty. For years the Dutch were told that the enforcement of controls were not allowed by 'Brussels'. Denmark gave Brussels the middle finger, so did Hungary and even Slovenia had borders with barbed wire. What has changed now is that the EU hegemon Germany suddenly takes action which was deemed impossible by the national establishments. You can ignore Slavs, but you cannot ignore the Herrenvolk. I trust you appreciate my cynicism about the way the West looks towards the East.
Schengen is a disaster for the European peoples and needs to be terminated. Already 25 years ago I had a digital visa for entering Australia. Applied for it in advance. Checked at the border and could pass through. In fact, the controls for sanitary purposes took most of the time. That is for individuals. I do not believe this cannot be organised efficiently for trucks, barges, planes and trains. The costs of having no borders dwarfs the marginal increased costs of border control. It is billions against millions.
Free movement is free movement though regardless of the reasons behind whatever it is or whoever it may be is crossing the border.
Countries can't simultaneously have free movement and border checks, they're incompatible: movement is either free or restricted.
And you're right, Schengen doesn't preclude the authority to impose temporary checks, which is what Germany is doing, but it also has consequences.
This notion that you're pushing about there being no adverse consequences whatsoever doesn't align with the way that everything works.
I feel like you're conflating my agreement with Tusk's observations to personal support for Schengen, which isn't the case.
I acknowledge its benefits but also am keenly aware of its detriments. My only point is that there are ulterior motives to this and there will also be adverse consequences.
I genuinely don't understand how that's a controversial stance to have, which is why I think you're either misunderstanding me or taking this personally.
Again, you can't have free movement and border controls, it's either one or the other, whether forever or temporarily. It's literally a zero-sum choice.
No, you cannot move freely weapons, drugs, humans, protected animals, important art etc. There is a host of exceptions. The fact that you can go on holiday to the Spanish costas and put your debit card in the ATM does not mean that Spain will have to accept your behaviour that undermines Spanish society.
Free movement of goods in essence means that the EU is a single customs union and that at any point of entry the same tariff applies and that within the the customs union there are no tariffs. Historical example is the German Zollverein. Also there cannot be restrictions on movements on goods within the EU other than allowed by treaty. Healty, safety, public order, national security etc. Try to import Hakenkreuz brooches from France into Germany. Will not do.
Freedom of establishment is either to change your residence because of an economic activity (business, company), or cross the border because of accepting a job. There should be no restrictions on that, unless allowed by treaty. Member States can reserve certain functions for their nationals, typical government functions. You cannot become governor of the central bank of Austria, unless you have Austrian nationality. Yo;u cannot establish a bank in order to launder drugs money and claim the permit needs to be used because you invoke the freedom of establishment. Of course, in practice this works out differently.
So a) there are many restrictions already allowed which concur with the concept of both these freedoms. It was written in the Lisbon treaty and the EU establishes its own legal order that overrules all national legal orders.
b) the costs of political inaction and servicing the Brussels bureaucracy's fantasy about a federal superstate reduces the quality of life for the average European and the marginal costs for businesses of border controls is just a red herring. Follow the money. Cui bono. Many excellent restaurants in Brussels, which otherwise is a dump.
Well actually, yes, you can indeed freely move those things across borders if there's free movement precisely because there aren't any checks. That's the cost of implementing such a policy, and these things are happening right now.
The same can be said about free movement between regional states/provinces or between Russia and Belarus: there aren't normally any checks so anything can move across, including what's not supposed to.
That's why in the US it's automatically a felony if I remember correctly for someone to commit a crime across state borders in order to deter that from happening amidst the absence of checks.
As I've said, Germany isn't doing anything "illegal" since its actions are in line with existing agreements and their relevant clauses. I don't know why you keep bringing up this point after I've already confirmed it and never denied it.
It seems to me like you're angry that I brought up the consequences of reimposing checks and are using that to elaborate more on your opinion of what Schengen should and shouldn't be.
That's fine, but I mistakenly thought you were trying to enter into a dialogue with me, the author, to better understand my views. That was clearly an error of judgement on my part as I now see.
I'm not interested in arguing about coulda, shoulda, woulda, only in analyzing what is, how it got to that point, and what it might lead to. You're free to carry on but I'm too busy to continue interacting after I've already clarified my views.
Of course I am not angry with you. I very much appreciate your articles here on substack. You are for me a source of sensible information. And there is no need to prolong a discussion like this in public.
But just to tease you a little as a conclusion to our exchange.
Why do you think a 'military Schengen' between three states was necessary, if the Lisbon treaty supposedly already allowed the freedom of moving the tanks across the borders? :-)
It is utter nonsense to claim that this measure will impede the freedom of persons and goods. The measure is the same as during the European Soccer Championship which was a huge success in catching criminals and terrorists. There are no restrictions for EU-citizens to move within the EU but no Member State is obliged under any treaty obligation to house criminals, terrorists or people without means. As for moving goods across the border, it is amazing how in the day and age of internet it is not possible to create special corridors (i.e. already existing roads, waterways and railroads) for these cross border movements of goods. In fact, quality of life in many EU countries would greatly improve if there were actual border controls with barriers and strip searches. Hungary is living evidence that fences and walls work.
I am always amazed that people want to organize their lives around 4 weeks of holidays a year when they cross a border, but apparently do not care about their lives in the other 48 weeks when they are at work and suffer from criminality, loss of trust in society, housing shortages, terrorist attacks and all these other so called blessings of the Brussles bureaucracy. European elites have the problem that gated communities are not yet acceptable amongst their sycophants in the MMS. As long as that situation exits they are forced to keep the mess they created somewhat under control.
It is not utter nonsense: it'll increase time and therefore cost, even if only marginally, but it could compound with time.
That said, I don't personally disagree with stronger border security, I'm just pointing out that Tusk for once made some pretty solid points.
The problem is also that ANYONE is allowed to move freely while inside Schengen, even if they're not an EU citizen because there's no way to check, and it's therefore exploited.
Ideally, countries wouldn't allow riffraff into their borders to infiltrate the rest of the EU, but they do for self-interested economic, political, and ideological reasons.
Schengen itself can in theory be reformed, but that's unlikely to occur in practice unless countries unilaterally or through their own coalitions implement dramatic reforms.
The interim period of this transition would likely be characterized by some financial shocks, fearmongering news, etc., but it's survivable and would be for the better in my view.
I don't know what ultimate form it would take, just that all countries can't be relied on to sacrifice for the common good by restricting entrance from non-members.
So either the status quo remains with all its problems, or drastic action is taken to change everything, but the transition will be painful, it's unrealistic to expect it to proceed smoothly.
Another important point is that the enemy is already inside Europe, and border controls by themselves aren't a solution if they're not paired with a comprehensive "remigration' policy, which the German elite won't dare to even half-seriously consider.
I'm also skeptical that checks along the official border crossings will completely reduce the problem of illegal immigrants entering Germany since they can still cross through unofficial ones.
The whole thing comes off to me as a political ploy in response to the AfD's latest electoral successes, not as a sincere initiative towards comprehensively resolving this problem.
Of course you are right, it is a movement out of despair and once the elections are over it will be business as usual until the next spree of murders. Ultimatly it will lead to a legitimacy crisis and the whole crumbling edifice will come down. What comes next is probably not a pretty picture if you look at the events from the past. Plenty of examples to ignore.
https://www.efta.int/careers/life-efta/our-culture#:~:text=At%20EFTA%20there%20are%2091,nationalities%2C%20including%2068%20EFTA%20nationals.
EFTA is run by 91 persons for roughly 15 million inhabitants
EU is run by 30.000 persons excluding the 92.000 lobbyists for roughly 450 million inhabitants.
Many countries have had de-facto border controls for a while. They just haven't advertised it. Austria has had them for a while and when I was driving through there was a German border check (from Austria into Germany) already in January of this year.
And of course we quickly forget that during COVID years some borders were either temporarily closed or very hard to cross (say you didn't have a vaccine certificate).
You should make a distinction between free movement and free establishment. i.e. starting to live somewhere. The latter is restricted by performing an economic activity. Hence the possibility to keep out the paupers. The free movement of persons within the Schengen zone does not preclude any authority to do ID-controls at any place and time and have so called flying border controls who can stop any vehicle and or persons within 100 kms of a border and check for criminality. Notably the French do this in their fight agains cheap Asian copies of French luxury goods. It is that for political reasons these the mechanisms were not used because the concept of a border is tied to a nation state and national sovereignty. For years the Dutch were told that the enforcement of controls were not allowed by 'Brussels'. Denmark gave Brussels the middle finger, so did Hungary and even Slovenia had borders with barbed wire. What has changed now is that the EU hegemon Germany suddenly takes action which was deemed impossible by the national establishments. You can ignore Slavs, but you cannot ignore the Herrenvolk. I trust you appreciate my cynicism about the way the West looks towards the East.
Schengen is a disaster for the European peoples and needs to be terminated. Already 25 years ago I had a digital visa for entering Australia. Applied for it in advance. Checked at the border and could pass through. In fact, the controls for sanitary purposes took most of the time. That is for individuals. I do not believe this cannot be organised efficiently for trucks, barges, planes and trains. The costs of having no borders dwarfs the marginal increased costs of border control. It is billions against millions.
Free movement is free movement though regardless of the reasons behind whatever it is or whoever it may be is crossing the border.
Countries can't simultaneously have free movement and border checks, they're incompatible: movement is either free or restricted.
And you're right, Schengen doesn't preclude the authority to impose temporary checks, which is what Germany is doing, but it also has consequences.
This notion that you're pushing about there being no adverse consequences whatsoever doesn't align with the way that everything works.
I feel like you're conflating my agreement with Tusk's observations to personal support for Schengen, which isn't the case.
I acknowledge its benefits but also am keenly aware of its detriments. My only point is that there are ulterior motives to this and there will also be adverse consequences.
I genuinely don't understand how that's a controversial stance to have, which is why I think you're either misunderstanding me or taking this personally.
Again, you can't have free movement and border controls, it's either one or the other, whether forever or temporarily. It's literally a zero-sum choice.
No, you cannot move freely weapons, drugs, humans, protected animals, important art etc. There is a host of exceptions. The fact that you can go on holiday to the Spanish costas and put your debit card in the ATM does not mean that Spain will have to accept your behaviour that undermines Spanish society.
Free movement of goods in essence means that the EU is a single customs union and that at any point of entry the same tariff applies and that within the the customs union there are no tariffs. Historical example is the German Zollverein. Also there cannot be restrictions on movements on goods within the EU other than allowed by treaty. Healty, safety, public order, national security etc. Try to import Hakenkreuz brooches from France into Germany. Will not do.
Freedom of establishment is either to change your residence because of an economic activity (business, company), or cross the border because of accepting a job. There should be no restrictions on that, unless allowed by treaty. Member States can reserve certain functions for their nationals, typical government functions. You cannot become governor of the central bank of Austria, unless you have Austrian nationality. Yo;u cannot establish a bank in order to launder drugs money and claim the permit needs to be used because you invoke the freedom of establishment. Of course, in practice this works out differently.
So a) there are many restrictions already allowed which concur with the concept of both these freedoms. It was written in the Lisbon treaty and the EU establishes its own legal order that overrules all national legal orders.
b) the costs of political inaction and servicing the Brussels bureaucracy's fantasy about a federal superstate reduces the quality of life for the average European and the marginal costs for businesses of border controls is just a red herring. Follow the money. Cui bono. Many excellent restaurants in Brussels, which otherwise is a dump.
Well actually, yes, you can indeed freely move those things across borders if there's free movement precisely because there aren't any checks. That's the cost of implementing such a policy, and these things are happening right now.
The same can be said about free movement between regional states/provinces or between Russia and Belarus: there aren't normally any checks so anything can move across, including what's not supposed to.
That's why in the US it's automatically a felony if I remember correctly for someone to commit a crime across state borders in order to deter that from happening amidst the absence of checks.
As I've said, Germany isn't doing anything "illegal" since its actions are in line with existing agreements and their relevant clauses. I don't know why you keep bringing up this point after I've already confirmed it and never denied it.
It seems to me like you're angry that I brought up the consequences of reimposing checks and are using that to elaborate more on your opinion of what Schengen should and shouldn't be.
That's fine, but I mistakenly thought you were trying to enter into a dialogue with me, the author, to better understand my views. That was clearly an error of judgement on my part as I now see.
I'm not interested in arguing about coulda, shoulda, woulda, only in analyzing what is, how it got to that point, and what it might lead to. You're free to carry on but I'm too busy to continue interacting after I've already clarified my views.
Of course I am not angry with you. I very much appreciate your articles here on substack. You are for me a source of sensible information. And there is no need to prolong a discussion like this in public.
But just to tease you a little as a conclusion to our exchange.
Why do you think a 'military Schengen' between three states was necessary, if the Lisbon treaty supposedly already allowed the freedom of moving the tanks across the borders? :-)
🤡