The American poet Robert Frost wrote, “Something there is that doesn’t like a wall” in a poem in which the owner of a property next door to his kept insisting, “Good fences make good neighbors”. Throughout history that neighbor has been right in that clearly defined frontiers avoided disputes and have formed the basis of peaceful coexistence between property owners — as well as states. But those frontiers also marked the lines of dispute and millions have died defending or attacking these marks etched on a map.
This week the European Union expressed its own Robert Frost-style dislike for walls, by tearing down the frontiers between a further nine member states. It is now possible to drive from the Atlantic coast of Portugal to the Finnish or Estonian borders with Russia, across the borders of any one of 23 member states without once being halted at a frontier post and told to produce a passport. All these EU countries have signed up to the Schengen Agreement, which allows unrestricted movement within the EU. A 24th signatory, the island of Malta, has abolished passport controls for people arriving from other EU countries by ferry, but motorists will be hard-pressed to drive there directly.
There are all sorts of good arguments against Schengen, not least the danger that terrorists and other criminals will be able to move the length and breadth of the continent without restriction. It could, however, be reasoned that determined men of evil did that anyway with false passports. The British have refused to become part of Schengen precisely for this reason, but probably also because of both their real and imagined insularity. There are still some Britons who feel oddly uncomfortable knowing they are now linked to the continent by the Channel Tunnel.
However, whatever current disadvantages to a borderless Europe, the long-term implications of abandoning strictly enforced frontiers are of considerable importance, not simply for the Europeans but for the wider world. Those Euro-enthusiasts who look upon Schengen as a way of advancing the cause of a politically unified Europe are overlooking an important point. The roots of the EU lie in the trauma of two world wars in the first half of the last century. Europeans realized that if they persisted with their old nationalist ways and self-centered diplomacy, there would be further fighting. While internationally the world was trying to bring order and peace to its affairs with the creation of the United Nations, the Europeans set off on the economic and political track to what has become the EU.
The UN has notched up many notable achievements but the EU has undoubtedly made a better job of the “unity” part of its name, because for all their internal bickering, the Europeans share a common vision and purpose but maintain, often vigorously, the cultural and linguistic differences that so enrich the continent.
Schengen is showing a world, where men still die for frontiers, that you do not need good fences to be good neighbors.
