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1. Covid-19 bends the rules on internal border controls: Yet another crisis undermining the Schengen acquis?

Author:
Saila Heinikoski
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Free movement within the Schengen Area has been challenged in recent years by national measures: from internal border checks after the ‘migration crisis’ to the closure of borders in the Covid-19 crisis. This is the first time in the history of Schengen that member states have categorically refused entry to other EU citizens who are not registered residents or cross-border workers. Seventeen Schengen countries have submitted a notification on reintroducing internal border control due to Covid-19: Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and Switzerland. The use of Schengen provisions was creative: 12 states justified their internal border controls as a case requiring immediate action (Art. 28), France and Denmark expanded their already existing internal border controls (Art. 25), Finland appealed to the ‘foreseeable event’ clause (Art. 25), and Slovakia and Poland introduced ‘healthcare-police measures’ (Art. 23) before launching border controls (Art. 28). The crisis illustrates the need to reform Schengen in order to maintain the legitimacy of commonly agreed rules.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation, European Union, Public Health, Schengen, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Europe, Finland, Norway, France, Poland, Lithuania, Germany, Estonia, Belgium, Denmark, Hungary, Spain, Switzerland, Portugal, Iceland, Austria, Czech Republic, and Slovakia

2. What Is New About Today's EU-Russia Border?

Author:
Vadim Kononenko
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
On May 1st 2004, the EU reshaped its eastern borders by taking on board ten new member states. Among the many neighbours the EU meets across its enlarged borders, Russia occupies a very specific place. With all the talk about the emerging new EU neighbourhood, one may find it paradoxical that Russia is regarded as one of these new neighbours. There seems to be nothing new about Russia and the EU being neighbours, as they have had a common border for nine years already, since the accession of Finland to the EU in 1995. In this regard, the border that emerged in 2004 can be seen as simply a continuation of the existing 1300-km borderland in the north and as a result of the long-planned accession of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to the European Union. Added to this is the notion that, for all these countries, the existence of a border with Russia had become a reality more than a decade ago, after every legal and political tie with the dissolving Soviet Union had forever been severed. Later, as preparations for these countries to join the Union got underway, they, in order to comply with the EU's Copenhagen criteria for the new applicants, were to transform their external borders and policies according to the EU's Schengen acquis.
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Asia, Poland, Lithuania, Soviet Union, Latvia, and Northern Europe