Schengen’s Midlife Crisis
3rd July 2025
Last month marked 40 years of Schengen—what should have been a celebratory anniversary of a virtually borderless Europe. Instead, as a sign of the times, on July 1st, Poland announced the reinstatement of border controls with Germany and Lithuania, following accusations that its western neighbor secretly “dumped” illegal migrants inside Poland.
On 14 June 1985, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands met in the Luxembourg town of Schengen to sign an unprecedented agreement. It would allow the five countries to abolish checks at their internal borders, enabling the free movement of people, goods, and services between them.
Since then, as the European Union expanded, the Schengen area has been extended nine times—most recently at the beginning of this year to include Bulgaria and Romania. Today, it consists of 29 countries and guarantees free movement for 450 million people. The EU, naturally, regards this as a massive success and one of the bloc’s crowning achievements.