Schengen given up
 

It seems that Schengen open borders are about to be given up in a number of additional European countries, due to continuing difficulties, and not connected to Covid. What impact could this have on operations, particularly arrivals at airports which have dismantled onetime border posts. Detailed here :

Temporary Reintroduction of Border Control (europa.eu)

Temporary restrictions are not new. They do not signal the end of Schengen or of free movement for EU citizens, even though the likes of the Daily Express of the ERG might try to mislead you into believing this. Putin's war will of course complicate things, but will not destroy the basic rights of EU citizens.

This is an old story .just announcing they can do , not that they permanently do it .France has reinstalled border controls since the bataclan terrorist attacks in November 2015 , but not everywhere all the time . You can still cross the Belgian-French border on the motorway at 100 km/h for instance 99% of the time .

Very much agree with both that above comment and that by Economics101.

The French/Spanish authorities will occasionally chuck in random border/passport/ID/customs checks on some roads on the mutual border not a million miles from Chez Nous....they have done so for years.

Very occasionally (especially in the wake of terrorist attacks, or if there's a high profile event in town) the PAF (Border Police) at the local airport will check the documentation of all arrivals, even the paperwork of those travelling within the Schengen zone.

You mean they have the ability to 'take back control' of their own borders without leaving the EU?
Who'd a thunk it? 🙄

I was actually hopeful to consider, rather than getting into yet another B****t for/against slanging match, what the implications are for airports, where many have dismantled border control equipment for Schengen arrivals, and segregated these from non-Schengen ones, when such checks are reinstated. Likewise for departures within Schengen, where full visa etc checks may be required rather than just ID checks.

Most of these temporary restrictions appear to be aimed against smuggling and organised crime and only at specific land borders. None of them seem to apply to any airports (judging from your linked source at least). It is also something that has been ongoing for a longer period and seems to have little or no impact on airports so far. So I suppose there is little to discuss.

But in the case of a hypothetical reinstatement at airports... Same result as during COVID I suppose. Instead of funneling pax exiting the aircraft into the Schengen area, you get funneled into the non-Shengen area?

FWIW in the newish section of the main terminal at our local large regional French airport they've got a cunning system of internal doors that can be configured pretty much instantly to change which gates feed passengers through the police check points, both for inbound and outbound pax.

The authorities often switch the config during the day depending on the schedules as the demand changes for Schengen and non Schengen compliant arrivals and departures

Not many, since flying is not the preferred mode of transport for smuggling and organised trafficking. And I can't think of an international airport that states to be exclusively Schengen departures/arrivals. EU passengers would pass through e-gates, the rest in a queue.

Denmark has had passport checks on the Swedish and German land/sea borders for some time now. I have been waived through in a car twice in each direction (both times with Danish plates and heading to/from Germany over land and sea, but most recently, last week, I crossed into Denmark from Germany by train and we stopped for about 20 minutes while border police came though the train at Padborg.

I think most sizeable European airports can deal with shifting demand much like the aforementioned French airport, or at a push, data can be shared from around the EU with arrival countries before flights land, meaning anyone who shouldn't be traveling can get apprehended on arrival.

WHBM : no problems with those for airport control if that was your question. In Germany for instance when they want to control a Schengen flight they have 2 police guards at the entrance of the jetway controlling IDs as pax exit the aircraft it can take 5-10 min more to disembark that is all .
The Schengen treaty is not given up as your title says , just one of its provisions is applied more often , not really surprising considering the geopolitic dangerous situation we have in Europe currently

Heads up!

I've got first hand info on guys crossing the Belgium/Holland border and being pulled over. If you're a non EU resident, or god forbid, a Brit, and without an EU work permit, you've got some explaining to do. This is specifically targetting aircrew operating out of Liege. The border patrol are stopping cars between Liege and Maastricht.

We get this "Schengen" hassle on a daily basis here in Gibraltar when crossing the frontier in and out of Spain with passports being stamped to comply with the 90 day rule, so if you cross over every day or more times in a day, your passport fills up in a matter of weeks.
Our Gib registered cars are regularly pulled over when across the border in Spain. Recently a lady was threatened with arrest by police if the next time she was stopped and could not produce an international driving licence.
We are still hoping that the proposed treaty between Gibraltar and Spain/EU will be implemented that will then mean that these strict Schengen rules will only apply at the airport and seaport.

This Tuesday I crossed the german-dutch and then the dutch-belgian border at 100 km/h. No border control nobody got pulled over including on the way back. First hand info.

Problem is Gib was never really part of the Eu even when the UK was IIRC - and of course it has a history all of it's own

You can't use it as a general Schengen example I'm afarid

As Asurias said, the hassle you have with Spain has nothing to do with Schengen or even the EU, since GIB was never in the EU, and even not with the UK , as they opted out of the Schengen treaty in 1990, so long before Brexit.

What never ceased to amaze me with my British colleagues and friends is that they always had themselves strict border controls themselves , even before Brexit , but now after Brexit they still expect to cross the EU borders freely as before. As a recent French Foreign minister said : "the British people have to realize that the border between UK and the EU is now the same border as Poland with Belarus , or Estonia with Russia ".

where's the cake when you need to eat it?

horse crap as I pass that border very often. Extremely seldom they have checks there at the border and they aren’t specifically targeted at aircrew as that would be such a high investment for so little reward that even the Belgians would be sensible enough to forgo it. They are mostly aimed to check whether international truck drivers have everything in order as it has happened that they were driving without insurance, with fake papers and fatigued. November / december they are mostly aimed to check for heavy fireworks and throughout the year they are checking for so called drug runners. But they have all yellow number plates on BOTH front and rear. And I have been stopped as well despite not having UK number plates on different borders eg E42 and A1/A30

Being the cynic that I am, I´d say Europe reintroduces border control to keep the taxpayers from fleeing. Cause, reducing or controlling immigration is not on the agenda...

Wow, that's what is called projection ...