We have reached agreement on reintroducing customs inspections at Denmark’s borders as soon as possible

This is the centre-right administration in Denmark relying on support from the Dansk Folkeparti.

The BBC report claims that the new controls will not breach the Schengen rules. This means that these checks are not regular border controls, and hence will take place in Denmark only. This may seem like an academic distinction, but to use the example from Brenner, the check would have to take place after the border. This – for those that know Copenhagen – would mean that Öresund trains would be boarded by guards at Kastrup, for checks between there and Main Station. Road checks would have to be somewhere on Danish soil, and the minister’s statement about new electronic number plate reading technology might actually mean they do not stop all cars anyway…

Furthermore all of this gets complex is that Denmark does not have an obligation to show identification to a police officer. As a Dane you only have to state a name and an address, and they can – with reason – ask for a personal number. The answer from a train passenger could just be ‘oh I got on at Kastrup’, whereas the person actually came across the bridge from Malmö. Furthermore the sheer scale of checks – there’s a train every 10 minutes at peak between Malmö and Copenhagen, and a busy dual lane motorway – would require administration (and delay to road passengers) of an enormous scale. It will hence be interesting to see how much of this actually comes to pass.

Then there is of course the open question as to whether border controls actually work anyway… but of course if you’re a right wing party facing elections this autumn then a small issue like that isn’t going to matter to you. Having said that, however the practicalities work out, today is a sad day for the spirit of Schengen.

Barroso you're a coward http://j.mp/jBBfEz Who is there in the Commission defending the integrity of the EU? Anyone? #Schengen

01.05.2011 18:00 via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@jonworth

Jon Worth

@jonworth Disagree. Intelligent Cion w/ courage to c that governance may possibly have 2 b adapted 2 take account of exceptional circumst.

01.05.2011 19:09 via EchofonReplyRetweetFavorite

@ECspokesKoen

Koen Doens

Subsequent to the Twitter discussion, I’ve had some time to digest the letter Barroso sent back to Berlusconi and Sarkozy (you can find the PDF here) and, frankly, it’s not bad at all, and indeed contains plenty of positive points about how Schengen needs to be improved, although the letter does admit that reimposition of borders may be considered. The Guardian article to which I had linked only mentions the part about re-imposition of border controls, not the other answers provided by Barroso, notably to do with strengthening Frontex.

It strikes me that there is a game of brinksmanship going on here, and we are only hearing the side armed with a megaphone – Berlusconi (aided by his interior minister Maroni) and Sarkozy. On the other side we have the European Commission, and the Member States of northern Europe, who have rather little time for the protestations of the Italians, but are saying so in a more subtle, quiet manner, as with Barroso’s letter. This is the line from this Charlemagne blog post, and alluded to in the FT Brussels Blog here. Roderick Parkes also gives a good, comprehensive overview of the posturing, even questioning how serious the circumstances are that Italy is facing:

Back in March, Italy cried solidarity. Northerners resisted. So Rome regularised immigrants, sharing its problems with its immediate northerly neighbour France. Now France and Italy have teamed up to force support from their partners. If denied, they threaten to trigger the end of passport-free travel as we know it.

So what is the solution? The optimistic answer is that, so long as no real influx of immigrants materialises, the current panic will quickly resolve itself.

The problem with the protestations of Sarkozy and Berlusconi is that – knowing their appeals for assistance are going to fall on deaf ears – they step up the ‘put up the borders’ rhetoric, so much that the terms of the debate are changed, framing a re-establishment of border controls as the only viable solution (even if burden sharing is actually doing the job). With populist parties already on the rise across Europe, the Franco-Italian calls could be in danger of becoming a crescendo.

So how about a politician somewhere – in public – being willing to make an open, clear and determined defence of Schengen?

[UPDATE - 2.5.2011, 1800]
Thanks to a friend working on immigration policy I’ve been told that Germany took 432000 asylum seekers from the Western Balkans in 1992, while the number of Tunisians coming to Italy today is in the region of 25000. That would not seem to constitute ‘exceptional circumstances’, or at least less exceptional than Maroni speaks of. Amnesty has also gone as far as to argue that a lot of the issues in Lampedusa are of the Italians own making.

Zoll - CC / Flickr

Enough is enough. Why, oh why, are we re-establishing border controls in Europe, at least as far as night train passengers are concerned?

On the Amsterdam-München CityNightLine service last weekend Netherlands Police boarded the train at Venlo and shone a flashlight in everyone’s faces at the border.

Last night it was even more ludicrous – police controls (by French and Italian police) at the railway station at Paris Bercy before boarding the overnight train to Firenze SMN. I asked one of the police why the checks were happening and he looked at me as if I was from a strange planet and said “c’est la police étrangère”, meaning what exactly? Then on the train the cabin attendant demanded we hand in identity cards and tickets to him for the border checks, and the train did not pass via Switzerland as far as I am aware…

Sorry, but what is going on here? This is also not the first time I’ve faced similar checks either. And why rail passengers? Are similar checks being re-introduced on the roads as well? For – at least as far as trains are concerned – Schengen is a myth.

CC / Flickr

There’s nothing that manages to get my annoyed quite the way that border guards do. Especially when they are fat, pompous Austrians with a gun in a holster at their hip that greet you with ‘Grüß Gott’ and control your passport a few minutes after your train has left Brenner at the border between Italy and Austria.

Why am I especially annoyed? Theoretically, Italy and Austria are in Schengen and border checks should not take place. So instead of a ‘Grenzkontrolle’ you get the normal police asking you for ID just after the border.

Under Austrian law there is no obligation to carry a passport but in Schengen you have to “seine Identität der Behörde durch geeignete Dokumente nachweisen können” – be able to prove your identity with an approved document, so it’s essentially a border control Brenner, there’s no way to resist.

Anyway the pompous fat git had a glint in his eye when he took a look at my passport; it’s so old and worn that the coat of arms has worn off. ‘We’ve got one here’ he was thinking as he spoke my name and passport number loudly into his walkie-talkie to HQ without explaining to me what was going on.

When I then asked him – in German – what he was doing as Italy and Austria are in Schengen and hence there should not be a border control he quickly lost the smirk. “Das ist eine Schengenkontrolle! Wir sind nicht an der Grenze!”

So what, I asked him, is any different now than before Schengen? A control a few kilometres into Austria rather than on the border. Oh, and by the way I’m a EU politics teacher and I know my rights (not quite true, but it had the desired effect!) His mate on the other end of the walkie talkie had of course confirmed that I was legitimate, and he gave my passport back to me with a snort and left.

Wilkommen in Österreich!