#47 An Assessment of the Commission’s 2011 Schengen Governance Package. Preventing abuse by EU member states of freedom of movement? - Carrera, Sergio (CEPS Centre for European Policy Studies, 2012)
The Schengen system has been at the centre of sharp controversy throughout 2011 and the early months of 2012 a rising from attempts by several member state governments to challenge the right to the free movement of persons and the abolition of internal border checks. The speech delivered by Nicolas Sarkozy early this month (March 2012), as part of the French presidential campaign, in which he threatened to suspend France’s participation in Schengen illustrates this phenomenon. This paper examines the European Commission’s response to the Schengen controversies, namely the Schengen Goverance Package publishedin September 2011 and currently under negotiation in Council and the European Parliament. It assesses the scope and added value of the Package’s two new legislative proposals (a new Schengen evaluation mechanism and revised rules for restating internal border checks) by looking at the origins and features ofthe debate surrounding liberty of circulation in the Schengen area