Drawing the Line: Europe's New Borders.The True Cost in Detail

The dream of an open Europe really took shape on June 14, 1985, in Schengen. This quiet winemaking village in Luxembourg sits right where the borders of France, West Germany, and Luxembourg meet. On that day, along with representatives from Belgium and the Netherlands signed a historic agreement to slowly remove their shared border checks. This decision was highly practical because a working common market needed the free movement of goods and people across borders. It was also deeply symbolic because it offered a real sign to the world that the strict divisions of the Cold War were finally starting to fade.

While the 1985 agreement established the vision, the operational framework followed five years later. A 1990 convention introduced practical enforcement mechanisms, including a centralized database for police alerts known as the Schengen Information System, standardized short-stay visa rules, and enhanced cross-border police cooperation. The open border became reality on March 26, 1995, when seven founding nations formally ended systematic internal checks. The 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam later integrated these rules into European Union law, making Schengen membership an integral, though distinct, component of EU integration.

Over the next three decades, the area expanded into the world’s largest free-travel zone, eventually encompassing 29 countries, over 450 million residents, and more than 4 million square kilometers by 2025. Bulgaria and Romania achieved full accession after years of political vetoes, opening their air and sea borders in March 2024, followed by their land borders on January 1, 2025. Croatia joined fully in 2023, leaving 25 of the 27 EU member states within the borderless area; Cyprus continues to await entry, while Ireland maintains an official opt-out while participating in shared police databases.

The current systemic strain traces back to 2015, when more than one million refugees and migrants arrived in Europe, primarily fleeing war in Syria. That same year, major terrorist attacks struck France and Belgium, prompting several governments to activate the emergency provisions written into the original Schengen framework. Measures intended as temporary crisis responses quickly hardened into long-term practices. The system suffered a second shock in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, generating over 100 border notifications in a single year. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, security concerns remained a primary justification cited by several member states through mid-2026.

This legal mechanism is codified under Articles 25 to 30 of the Schengen Borders Code, which allows member states to temporarily reintroduce internal checks to address serious threats to public policy or internal security. Because the law requires these measures to serve strictly as a last resort, the ultimate authority rests with national governments rather than Brussels, leaving the European Commission with advisory powers but no legal veto. To address these vulnerabilities, the EU adopted Regulation 2024/1717, which took effect in July 2024. The revised code clarified valid grounds for controls, such as large-scale unauthorized movements or state-sponsored migrant instrumentalization, while simultaneously extending the maximum duration of temporary checks for predictable threats to two years, with exceptional extensions stretching toward three.

EU migration policy evolved in tandem with these internal controls. In May 2024, after years of political deadlock, the EU passed its Pact on Migration and Asylum, a comprehensive package of ten legislative acts that officially applied starting June 12, 2026. The framework mandates that member states screen and register irregular arrivals at external borders within seven days, channels many applicants into expedited border procedures, and establishes a solidarity mechanism to assist frontline states through relocations or financial support. While proponents view the pact as the essential external border safeguard required to eliminate internal controls, skeptics remain doubtful of its practical effectiveness.

Concurrently, Brussels introduced two advanced external border management tools. The Entry and Exit System (EES), an automated biometric database recording non-EU travelers' facial images and fingerprints instead of physical passport stamps. This system began a phased rollout on October 12, 2025, reaching full operation on April 10, 2026. In its initial months, the system logged over 45 million crossings and turned away more than 24,000 ineligible travelers, according to Commission data. Its companion system, the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS), will require pre-travel online authorizations for visa-free visitors and is slated for implementation toward the end of 2026.

This technological rollout coincides with growing political friction over internal checks. In early 2026, approximately ten Schengen states maintained active notifications for internal border controls. Germany, which had expanded checks across all nine of its land borders in September 2024, filed a new notification on March 2, 2026, extending its legal authorization through September 15. However, on March 16, 2026, Berlin dismantled its fixed checkpoint infrastructure upon the expiration of its previous order, allowing road and rail traffic to resume normal flow while maintaining legal enforcement scope. Meanwhile, France, Austria, Italy, Slovenia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, and Poland maintained varying levels of internal checks, citing issues ranging from Balkan migration routes and Russian sabotage threats to security surrounding the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. The ongoing stalemate culminated on June 2, 2026, when the European Commission issued formal opinions directing nine member states to begin phasing out their internal border controls.

1. The European Commission and defenders of open borders

   i. Free movement is the Union's most tangible promise and pays for itself many times over.

   The Commission highlights that approximately 3.5 million people cross an internal border daily for work or study, and almost 1.7 million live in one member country while working in another. A 2016 European Parliament study found that scrapping the border-free zone would cost between 2.5 billion and 5.1 billion euros a year in lost time, with a one-time cost of 7.1 billion euros to rebuild checkpoints. For the Commission, these figures prove that European integration directly improves ordinary life.

   ii. The checks were meant to be a last resort and many no longer meet that test.

   The revised Schengen Borders Code obliges the Commission to review controls that run beyond 12 months. On June 2, 2026, the Commission issued opinions for nine countries. While acknowledging their legitimate security concerns, Brussels argued that governments now have better tools available. The Commission stated that the new Pact on Migration and Asylum, the biometric Entry and Exit System, and targeted police checks should allow states to lift fixed border controls rather than making emergency tools the default.

2. The member states reintroducing controls

   i. Internal checks are a lawful national decision, and treaties give Brussels no veto.

   Governments running controls ground their argument in the Schengen Borders Code, which reserves the right to reintroduce internal checks for national governments facing a threat. The Commission can publish an opinion, but cannot overrule a member state. Countries including France, Austria, and Italy argue that the law allows them to respond to serious threats to public order, whether from migrant smuggling networks, jihadist attacks, or hostile states.

   ii. The checks address current threats and yield measurable results.

   The states reintroducing controls insist the threats are concrete. France cites persistent jihadist threats and smuggling networks, Denmark and Norway point to the risk of Russian sabotage against energy infrastructure, and Italy and Slovenia highlight Western Balkan smuggling routes alongside security for the 2026 Winter Olympics. Before lifting its controls in March 2026, Germany reported that border officers examined 3.2 million travelers and turned back roughly 37,000 people over 18 months.

3. Border communities, commuters, and hauliers

   The people who live near the border want the disruption to end.

   For border residents, the strongest argument is time. Cross-border commuters in the tri-national Upper Rhine region reported losing up to 90 minutes a day during Germany's active controls. German business groups estimated that border queues cost the logistics sector millions of euros a week and disrupted just-in-time supply chains. When Germany reopened its land borders in March 2026, rail operator Deutsche Bahn was immediately able to drop the 20-minute buffer times it had added to cross-border schedules.

1. Criticisms of the European Commission and defenders of open borders

   i. Open borders without working external controls have proven hard to sustain.

   The sharpest objection to the open-borders camp is that its external system failed the stress test of 2015. Member states reintroduced checks because migrants who entered one country easily moved on to others. Furthermore, the new Pact on Migration and Asylum only began applying on June 12, 2026. Critics argue that the Commission is asking governments to dismantle internal checks based on an untested system, adding that declaring the border safe prematurely carries significant risks.

   ii. The Commission's opinions carry no force and expose how little leverage Brussels has.

   Because the Schengen Borders Code gives Brussels no veto, the June 2026 opinions function only as recommendations. The Elcano Royal Institute describes this as a silent renationalization of border policy, led largely by Austria and Germany. Critics point out that the Commission has spent a decade issuing warnings while the checks persist, proving that an unenforceable instrument offers little real safeguarding power.

2. Criticisms of the member states reintroducing controls

   i. The checks are expensive and analysts question how much security they actually buy.

   The strongest objection to controlling states involves cost versus benefit. The think tank France Strategie estimated that a permanent return to frontier controls would cost roughly 110 billion euros over a decade. Because the checks are random by design, they stop only a fraction of crossings. The Elcano analysis notes that while the asylum numbers of 2015 and 2016 were high, the coordinated welcome of millions of Ukrainian refugees in 2022 proved the Union has the capacity to manage large migrations. Critics argue the controls fail the strict necessity test and are driven instead by domestic politics.

   ii. Renewing temporary controls for years strains the letter and spirit of the law.

   The Schengen Borders Code demands that internal checks remain a proportionate last resort. However, several states have renewed their controls in six-month blocks for years without invoking the highest exceptional threshold. The 2024 reform, which stretched maximum durations toward three years, drew heavy criticism for risking permanent exceptions. Former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta argued in a 2024 report that the health of Schengen is inseparable from the health of the European single market and urged institutions to firmly oppose limits on free movement.

3. Criticisms of the new border systems and the wider design

   The new systems are slipping and may not deliver the required certainty.

   Both camps rely on the new external systems, making technical delays a shared vulnerability. The Entry and Exit System only reached full operation on April 10, 2026, following a delayed, phased rollout, and the European Union still left room to suspend the system during peak travel. Meanwhile, the European Travel Information and Authorisation System had not yet launched as of June 2026. Critics warn against basing open internal borders on external policing technology that has not yet proven its reliability.