Schengen is celebrated as a major achievement of the EU with the abolition of internal border controls but is simultaneously considered as a source of crisis and controversies with the reintroduction of controls at the internal borders, the balance between solidarity and responsibility in liaison with secondary movements, the monitoring of human rights at external borders, and the increasing recourse to large-scale databases. The conference analysed from a legal point of view these issues at the core of the current debates on migration and asylum policies.
The conference also examined the foundations of Schengen that are been largely ignored while they belong to the most complex legal issues: What is exactly the scope of the Schengen acquis defining to which countries it applies among the EU and associated States? What are precisely the conditions that a State must fulfill for the enlargement of the Schengen area? What are legally the elements to take into consideration for establishing a balance between solidarity and responsibility like for instance the Dublin system not part of the Schengen acquis?
The conference introduced interested participants (policy makers, EU & States officials, NGO representatives, academics, lawyers, judges, border guards, PhD students, researchers, etc) to the state-of-the-art regarding those issues from a theoretical but also practical point of view. The conference is part of the broader “Schengen Project” launched by the Odysseus Network. Its proceedings will be published in a book that will fill the existing gap in the limited literature devoted to Schengen.
The videos and the materials of the conference can be accessed via the links below:
Session 3 – The scope of the Schengen Acquis: Slim or Large Fit
Session 4 – The Holy Grail: In Search of Conditions for the Enlargement of Schengen
Session 5 – The Road to Schengen Through Dublin: Solidarity Versus Responsibility
- Video
Session 6 – Guards at Internal Borders or Policemen Inside the Territory?
Session 7 – Externalising Human Rights at the Borders
Session 8 – Intelligence Artificial but also Interoperable and Automated