The Schengen agreement and the memory of Sagunto

While the Schengen Agreement is now gathering vetoes, disputes and discontent, the European institutions remain silent. Such a situation may cause a real paralysis. This hypothesis is reinforced by the inconclusive meeting held yesterday among the Ministers of Home Affairs and Justice of the 27 member states. The meeting was, indeed, opened and closed in a few hours without producing any result. Dum Romae consolitur, Saguntum expugnatur (While in Rome it is deliberated, Sagunto is assaulted). Here is a warning of the ancient history which today may become the outline of a concrete, threatening prophecy for the increasingly uncertain future of the EU. In such a context, we run the risk of facing a default of political leadership adding up to already uneasy economic situations (especially in Greece and Portugal). The recent tendency to criticise and try to change a system of rules created in the Eighties and entered into force more than fifteen years ago is in itself a crime of lese-majesty. First of all because the Schengen Agreement was legitimately recognised by each of the national administrations. And especially because a complex and tricky subject such as that of the rules regulating border controls and the free movement of people needs to be constantly and systematically updated. It is legitimate to try to make improvements, but it is impossible to delete what already exists. That is the actual problem.

International public opinion is increasingly confused and scared. Governments are trying to gain a few percentage points among voters by asking to change the Schengen Agreement, which they describe today as a sort of threat for Nations. In such a context, the EU cannot turn its face back,  and hope that one day things will change. This situation feeds that political default above-mentioned that is unable to solve the unbearable constitutional ambiguity where the EU and its members have been living for a long time. National Governments, indeed, do not have anymore the power and the freedom to decide as they did in the past. However, the shift to a federal organisation of the current institutions is not foreseen. It is not part, indeed, of the agenda and nor is it part of the plans of some “enlightened” persons who, like the Founding Fathers, have the courage to look beyond.