European Integration

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This issue is exposing the hypocrisy of relationship inside Europe and the weaknesses of European countries to understand their different needs.

Bringing back border controls

Even if members keep confident about the appropriateness and the future of the Schengen area, and about the economic benefits of borderless politics inside Europe; several countries have bringing back their own border controls because of the leakage on external borders that we talked about before.

Here are a few examples:

France has implemented random checks on borders since the terrorist attacks in November 2015 through the state of emergency and has reinforced it with the Euro 2016 football tournament. French administration is hoping to end it but doesn’t know when because of the fear of further terrorist attack. We can see that the main concern in France is not migration flows but security against terrorism.

Germany has established border checks with Austria until at least May 2016 because it is the main path for migrants in Germany. Like France, they hope to end it but they are waiting for a potential agreement between Europe and Turkey and the implementation of alternatives migrative routes to reduce the arrival of illegal migrants. Despite this, Angela Merkel is favorable to welcome refugees from Syria.

Denmark has reintroduced border check with Swedish and German borders, due to the increasing flow of refugees seeking for international protection. These checks are renewed several times a year, and there are no expectations of an ending for now.

These checks are temporary but it is consequences of singular situation but it shows the difficulty for Schengen to protect the countries inside Europe. Because local leaders must take decisions in accordance with their own circumstances but still dealing with Schengen policy.

Indeed, the public opinion is very important and the refugee crisis has created a gap between countries and between people inside these countries. We see through the further graphic that public opinion is more based on culture and economic situation than on the amount of international protection seeking.

[pic 5]

We can see that Baltic countries are facing a very important reluctance to migrants even if the amount of asylum requests is the lowest.

In the other hand, Sweden is the third country receiving the most asylum application but has a barely good (almost 70%) opinion on migrants.

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Consequences of a “non-Schengen”

Crisis of migrants, intensification of drug trafficking in Europe, attacks in France and Belgium, the Schengen area is more than ever challenged by Europeans and is at the center of many political debates.

Although the suppression of it is rather hypothetical, many European political parties make it a campaign argument, wanting to reinforce border control and suppress free movement in the Schengen area.

In fact, the abolition of the Schengen area is not on the agenda and the consequences of this would be rather complex. From several articles studied, we will study the consequences and costs of a "no-Schengen".

Economic consequences

What would be the economic consequences for France of a permanent restoration of border controls in the Schengen area?

In the short term the most affected by this measure would be:

- Short-term tourists from neighboring countries

- Non-European tourists visiting several countries in Europe

- Frontier workers and road freight traffic.

France, to name a few, would suffer a blow of between one and two billion euros per year, depending on the intensity of border controls. This figure will be higher by adding the budgetary cost of these checks. Half of this cost is explained by a 38% decrease in tourism by the impact on frontier workers and 12% by freight transport restrictions.

In the longer term, the generalization of permanent controls would be equivalent to a 3% tax on trade between countries in the zone, which would decline structurally from 10% to 20%. This would result in a loss of at least half a point of GDP for France, which amounts to about ten billion euros. In addition, there are potential effects on foreign investment and labor mobility. For the other Schengen countries, the impact would be on the order of 0.8 points of GDP; it’s to say more than 100 billion euros. Other effects are to be considered, such as a loss of mobility for workers, a reduction in direct investment and financial flows.

Here is a board from the European Parliament’s website, that summarize a “low” scenario of a suppression of Schengen:

International transaction affected

Length of delay (all individuals, all French borders)

Important additional assumptions

Additional assumptions Annual monetary cost (€ million)

Loss in revenue from incoming tourists

Single-day visitors: -5% Two-day visitors: -2.5%

Tourist expenditures by categories

Loss in revenue (note this is not welfare loss in an economic sense) €498 million

French cross-border commuters

10 minutes twice daily

Value of travel time at €10 per hour

€253 million (€723 per commuter)

Lorry transport

0.5 hours per lorry crossing the French border

Value of time in goods, value of time for transport firm

€124 million

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Impact on foreign investment

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