Borders closing?
 

Tom Ashbrook on WHUR is talking about how the European nations are reconsidering open borders due to the refugee crisis. A threat to European union. Will it some again to the question: passport please? Any travelers share their experiences?

No threat to the EU. No problem to present one's passport. Guess you haven't been traveling very long.

If WHUR says so.

Experiences with what? Like a lot of people on this forum, I traveled in Europe pre-EU, and "closed borders" were handled same as anywhere, via simple and organized passport control points.

Of course the immigration crisis is a threat to the EU, but this discussion--closing borders, the death of the union, etc.--has been going on for some time and will go on for some time. The effect on travelers is, I daresay, the least of the concerns.

It could be a threat to Schengen initially, but also to the EU, especially given the newer member states reluctance to take in their share of migrants.
Poland is already under a warning from the EU for various rules the right wing government have brought in, such as restricting the freedom of the press. Their refusal to take in migrants, whilst happily exporting their own people throughout Europe is another bone of contention.

The fact that Greece, which is pretty overwhelmed with the daily influx, and Italy to a lesser extent, aren't following Schengen rules regarding registering asylum seekers doesn't help the future of Schengen. It could be suspended for a couple of years, rather than abandoned completely.

If you look at the Guardian or BBC websites you can read more about the whys wherefores and likelihoods of the situation, though they are reporting it whilst being separate from it, the UK not being part of Schengen, and not intending to take in any migrants from Europe. The Brexit threat could also be colouring reporting somewhat.

"No threat to the EU" ---- ???

It's an existential threat to the EU.

hetismj2 is confusing the DUBLIN rules with Schengen -- and the fact is that the Dublin rules were SUSPENDED by Angela Merkel, so please do not blame Greece and Italy for this, thank you.

http://www.dw.com/en/germany-suspend...ans/a-18671698

Good advice to read an actual news outlet like the BBC about the situation in Europe rather than threads like these, because overwhelmingly what you find here is inaccurate and uninformed and highly prejudicial.

Our daughter was traveling with her school last Friday from Austria to CZ for a HS basketball tournament in Prague; the chartered bus was stopped at the border and the undercarriage examined. No officials came on board. We traveled via personal vehicle along the same route and were not stopped, although there were several official cars at the border, with many vans and trucks pulled to the side. As a matter of precaution, we are now carrying our passports along with our residency cards; and with the exception of slow-going Germany/Austria border crossings in the fall, we haven't experienced any real issues with travel.

"It's an existential threat to the EU. "

You really have to be American (or the most brain-dead Brussels bureaucrat) to say anything so mind-bogglingly ignorant about the EU.

1. There is no discussion - outside the extreme lunatic fringe - about closing borders.

2. There are real proposals on the table to suspend the Schengen system in whole or (more realistically) in part, meaning more borders will look like Britain's. That's how the EU has been for most of its existence.

Reintroducing borders is almost irrelevant to the free movement of goods (Britain doesn't check goods movements with the rest of the EU). It doesn't effect the guaranteed free movement of non-criminal EU citizens across its internal borders or the automatic right of EU citizens to live, work and draw social benefits wherever they want in the EU.

At a few points, reintroduced border controls will cause traffic congestion at busy times (as if Europe hasn't got any right now): in a smaller number (like around Geneva, between Malmo and Copenhagen or along some of the Alpine lakes) it might change recently developed shopping or working patterns.

Reintroduction WILL enable a country to reduce the number of non-EU immigrants if it wants to. Whether you welcome or regret that is a personal matter, and there's a strong case for encouraging a more welcome approach to non-European refugees. But reintroducing border controls doesn't, of itself, ban Syrians: it just allows the Swedes or Danes to make the decision themselves.

3. What borders are an existential threat to is the fantasy world of Brussels dreamers. The Schengen system is irrelevant to most of the benefits the EU has created/ Like the common art direction of some car licence plates or national passports, it merely creates a visible sign of Eurocrats' aspirations.

Those aspirations aren't the aspirations of most Europeans. Even before the refugee problem, the gap between the deluded world of the Commission's zealots and the Community's 500 million citizens was already creating real existential threats to the EU's future.

Suspending Schengen probably gives the Community a breathing space to recognise the zealots' follies and do something about them.

Before Britain becomes the ONLY EU member - OK, just the UK and Ireland - committed to the EU's alleged core values of open trade, free movement of citizens, and the rule of democratically accountable law.