Border management

The Schengen Agreement was concluded in 1985 with the aim of creating a borderless area between Germany, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. It was followed by the Schengen Convention in 1990, before the Schengen area was institutionalized at the European level by the Amsterdam Treaty of October 2, 1997. The Schengen area currently includes 29 member states, including four non-EU countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland). Although, in theory, there are no longer any internal border checks within the Schengen area, they can be temporarily implemented if deemed necessary to maintain public order or national security. Thus, the 2015 migration crisis affecting Europe, followed in 2020 by the Covid-19 pandemic and the implementation of disorganized health measures to address it, prompted European countries to increase measures to reinstate controls at internal and external borders. These events highlighted the gaps in the rules governing the operation of the Schengen area and the need to create a better-regulated and more robust framework, enabling an effective response to the challenges faced by the member states of this area.

Presented by the European Commission on December 21, 2021, the proposal for a regulation amending the Schengen Borders Code with the aim of strengthening the Schengen area, by further regulating the closures and the reintroduction of border controls, was adopted on May 24, 2024. This update introduces crucial measures for border communities, including the obligation for Member States, in the event of reintroducing internal border controls, to assess their likely impact on the movement of people and the functioning of cross-border regions, and to provide for mitigating measures..

The new regulation provides for exemptions and adaptations for the inhabitants of these border regions. The amended Article 39, as well as Article 42a, indeed require Member States to notify the ‘cross-border regions’ to the Commission no later than two months after the regulation comes into effect, in order to determine the scope of any mitigation measures to be taken into account and the areas to be considered when notifying a reintroduction of border controls at internal borders by Member States. The list of cross-border regions referred to in Article 42a of the (EU) regulation known as the Schengen Borders Code was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 18 August 2025.