Revealed: Passport checks on two thirds of Europe's 'open' Schengen borders

Fears of illegal migration and extremism linked to Middle East conflict deal blow to European ideal

Germany began carrying out checks at all nine land borders on Monday in a symbolic blow to Europe's open-border ideals. AFP

About two thirds of Europe's “open” Schengen borders are now patrolled by guards, analysis by The National reveals.

More than two dozen land borders snaking 11,300km across the map of Europe are subject to “temporary” controls, meant to combat everything from illegal migration and smuggling to terrorism and the fallout from the war in Gaza.

Checks began around Germany on Monday in a particularly symbolic blow to the Schengen ideal, as the country once split by the Iron Curtain put its hard-won open borders on hold amid voter anger over asylum and extremism.

Visitors with Schengen visas who are told they can travel freely around Europe will find guards asking for passports at road crossings, train stations, bridges and ferry ports. In one three-month period, more than 450,000 people were stopped at borders, between Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland.

Even at Schengen's longest border, the 1,666km frontier stretching through fjords and mountains between Norway and Sweden, there are spot checks on migration and cars can be searched for drugs and weapons. Sweden has rolled over “temporary” checks every six months since 2015.

Near the Luxembourg village of Schengen, where five countries signed the original agreement in 1985, campaigners staged a symbolic walk across three borders in May to champion free movement. One of them, Daniel Silva, “reminded everyone how lucky we were, because we take this for granted”, he told The National.

“Borders are for us a thing of the past and should never be closed again,” said Mr Silva, a member of federalist pan-EU party Volt. “We go shopping in Germany, we often travel to Belgium for example just to go to Ikea because it’s the only one around. We cross the borders daily.”

Checks widen

Today, Schengen has 27 full members, not including Romania and Bulgaria, where free movement is limited to air and sea routes. They share 40 internal land borders stretching 17,501km across the European mainland.

Eight countries including Germany, France and Italy currently have formally notified the EU of six-month “temporary controls”. These amount to checks on 25 frontiers and 11,318km of border, or 65 per cent of the total length.

A variety of reasons were given to EU officials. Austria cited the “security implications following the Hamas attack on Israel”, and a rise in anti-Semitism. Italy spoke of a terrorist risk “connected to the turmoil in the Middle East”. Denmark mentioned desecrations of the Quran that may have made it a target for extremists.

Germany's new checks are justified by “security risks related to irregular migration”, as a wave of asylum claims “exacerbates an already tense accommodation situation”. Others have cited the Olympics, Russian espionage and threats from cyber fraud, arms smuggling and criminal gangs.

EU figures suggest thousands of people will be asked for their papers under Germany's new checks. Between October and December last year, when Berlin was only monitoring its southern and eastern flank, 311,000 people were inspected at the Czech border along with 142,000 entering from Poland.

Limited crossing points between France and Spain led to “considerably longer travel times and delays at the border”, according to EU officials. Croatia reported traffic congestion after Slovenia brought in checks during a holiday period.

Sweden inspected 128,000 people in five months at its land border, of whom 279 were denied entry and six arrested over alleged smuggling. At Norway's ferry ports, more than 34,000 passengers were “physically checked” last year.

Internal and external

In Brussels, the Schengen zone is seen as “one of the crown jewels of European integration”, as EU migration tsar Margaritis Schinas said in April. Abandoned Cold War border posts have become a fascination for urban explorers. The EU said the kind of checks ordered by Germany must be “necessary and proportionate” and “should remain strictly exceptional”.

Germany's checks have also rankled with neighbours such as Poland. Hungary's nationalist government, which has been chided by Berlin in the past for its take-no-prisoners stance on migration, declared on its website: “We told you so.”

About 8.5 million non-EU citizens were issued with Schengen visas last year, according to the commission's figures. There are 1.7 million who live in one Schengen country and work in another, and the borders are crossed 3.5 million times a day.

The Schengen Borders Code was revised in May in an attempt to curb the kind of every-country-for-itself rule making that sprang up during the Covid-19 pandemic. It says countries should consider alternatives to border checks and not roll over “temporary” rules for more than two years.

Yet governments across Europe are under intense pressure to get a grip on migration. More than a million people claimed asylum in an EU country last year, the first time that threshold was passed since 2016. About one in four were from Syria or Afghanistan.

Germany's new checks emerged from a political firestorm over migration. On August 23, a Syrian who was due for deportation to Bulgaria was arrested over a deadly knife attack that killed three people. A week later, Germany's far right scored its most significant election win since 1945.

Having publicly warned last year that the Schengen zone was “in danger” without a long-awaited EU asylum overhaul, Germany has now decided it cannot wait for the deal eventually struck in Brussels.

The deal calls for some asylum seekers to be summarily turned away, in exchange for those allowed in to be shared out among EU countries. Member states could have to pay €20,000 ($22,300) for every person they decline to take in.

But it does not take effect until 2026, Hungary has said it will not implement it and there are fears it will lead to human rights violations. Policies such as this are about “taking the problems outside of the eyesight of the Europeans”, Mr Silva said.

Germany's move “goes against the core principles of the European Union”, he said. “Not so long ago we were condemning Hungary under the direction of Viktor Orban for doing this. Now Germany is doing it, so this totally undermines the European spirit.”