00:00 Some countries within the borderless Schengen area are stepping up checks on their frontiers.
00:07 Yet one of the main principles of the Schengen Agreement is freedom of movement of citizens.
00:11 There are clauses that provide for the temporary restoration of border controls,
00:15 primarily when it concerns a threat to public order or internal security.
00:20 And so far in 2023, at least seven Schengen states have taken advantage of these provisions.
00:25 So is the treaty working as hoped?
00:28 What we are seeing now is yet another example of the fragility of the Schengen borderless area.
00:37 And this is for a number of reasons.
00:40 There are political reasons that have to do with upcoming elections at the local and national level,
00:46 which have put central governments under pressure.
00:50 They also have to do with additional arrivals, especially in southern European countries,
00:55 and the possibility of further secondary movements to northern European countries
01:00 that have seen an uptake in first-time asylum applications in recent months.
01:06 Germany calls the resumption of border checks with Poland and the Czech Republic
01:13 one of the options for combating human traffickers.
01:16 Slovenia is also stepping up surveillance of its border crossing with Croatia,
01:22 which recently joined the Schengen area.
01:25 It is often just a matter of spot checks.
01:29 They check some of the people that cross, but it is not really a full reintroduction of internal borders as such.
01:35 It is a symbolic measure for the domestic public,
01:38 and as such, probably it is not as important as some politicians would want it to be.
01:44 But the Schengen system on its own is fine.
01:47 (whooshing)
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