The EU unrest and the Schengen visa: What happens now?
Do any requirements for the Schengen visa change owing to the European Union crisis? We find out.
The European Union has been in a state of unrest for a while now. Already grappling with a crippled economy following Greece’s financial woes three years ago, the surge in migrant populations drifting to different European countries since last year has caused even graver problems for the EU countries. These problems are largely internal in nature and not operational – populations of such countries as Germany, Hungary and Sweden, for example, feel that there should be greater control over their borders.
Sweden is about to deport close to 85,000 asylum seekers currently living on its soil, while Hungary was the first country in the EU to erect a wall stopping migrants from crossing over from the South. The Syrian refugee crisis, meanwhile, goes on unabated and the migrants’ hopes of finding homes in different European countries dim with every passing day.
It is safe to say that the fabled European integration is reaching a state of collapse. This has a direct implication for movement of people across the EU countries, and this includes tourists and travellers moving about for work.
The genesis of the Schengen visa is an interesting one. Schengen is a tiny village in Luxembourg, sitting cheek by jowl with France and Germany. In 1985, these three countries agreed to do away with internal borders that did not allow residents to pass over into each other’s territories without separate visas for each country. Then Holland and Belgium were included in this treaty in the same year, but the actual common visa policy took shape only a decade later.
Today, 22 European countries and four non-EU countries like Iceland, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Norway comprise the EU and allow over 1.25 traveller passages across its internal borders every year. These journeys can be made by way of a single Schengen visa. But after recent economic and social developments in the region, the Schengen is touted to be teetering on the verge of collapse. This means stricter controls on who gets the Schengen visa, duration of the same, and the very real possibility of taking separate visas for different European countries in the future, if the Schengen territory is ever derecognised.
The Schengen member states have the constitutional authority to shut down borders in the wake of internal security threats for a period of 30 days, or longer controls (in times of wars, cross border infiltration and emergent migrant populations moving across the borders) for up to two years.
Already, border controls have been imposed by Germany, Austria and France, apart from Hungary, Macedonia and Greece. It is time for the EU to work out a solution to the migrant crisis or the Schengen area would completely collapse. It is likely that severe curbs on granting visas and length of stay by visitors would be put in place soon.
