Nothing quite captures the essence of the European Union like freedom of movement, an ideal that delivers physical benefits while also conveying the profound trust that underpins the undertaking.
That sense of "Europe you can feel", as one German MEP put it today, is under siege like never before amid an intensifying border dispute between Germany and Poland that has profound implications for the passport-free travel enshrined in the Schengen treaty.
Early Monday, Poland responded to a recent German decision to reintroduce border controls by posting 2,000 sentries of its own along western and northern frontiers. Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who announced the move last week, framed it as a response to illegal border crossings from Germany, a pretext few will (or should) take at face value.
Few European borders carry as much weight – or hope – as the one that separates Germany and Poland. Willy Brandt's decision in the early 1970s to accept the so-called Oder-Neisse line was a turning point in the Cold War that ultimately helped pave the way to reunification decades later.
Ever since former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz introduced spot checks along the border with Poland in 2023, the Polish far-right has exploited the situation, with vigilantes patrolling the German border for migrants. Their activism has been cheered by the recently elected President Karol Nawrocki, who commended their "patriotism".
The border dispute between two of Europe's largest countries, whose relationship remains fraught even 80 years after the war, has been especially unedifying for the Commission. The executive has done precious little to intervene either in the German-Polish case or in any of the other border flashpoints of recent years (in the process tarnishing what many present as Europe's "crown jewel"). As a consequence, a succession of unilateral Schengen suspensions has gone unchecked.
Under the Schengen rules, border controls are supposed to be triggered as a "last resort". In reality, they have become a weapon that governments reach for when they need to assert their authority and counter domestic critics. And whilst these actions have been questioned by the European Court of Justice and the European Parliament, they have yet to impose any penalties.
This failure to act was all the more conspicuous in June as Schengen celebrated 40 years. Rather than take the opportunity to reaffirm the principles of the 1985 treaty, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz doubled down on his predecessor's border patrols, further souring relations with Poland.
Poland's opposition party Law and Justice (PiS) has latched onto the ensuing uproar, its co-founder Jarosław Kaczyński claiming, without evidence, that "Germany regularly transfers illegal migrants to our side." This line was echoed by the outgoing president Andrzej Duda: "Germany created this migration problem and must deal with it on their own. We will not solve it for them."
If anyone can de-escalate the tension, it must be Merz, who himself acknowledged a "common problem" but stopped short of agreeing to a climb-down, focusing instead on the 13 checkpoints Poland has set up on its border with Lithuania, rather than the 52 along its border with Germany.
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