The Schengen Agreement has made passport-free travel possible for over 400 million Europeans. Cecilia Malmström, European Commissioner for Home Affairs stated that the creation of the Schengen area is one of the most tangible, popular and successful achievements of the European Union. Moreover, for European economy as well, free movement is central to the success of the Single Market.

The Schengen area of free movement was born in three steps. First, in June 1985 five countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) signed the Schengen Agreement; five years later, the Schengen Convention set out how the abolition of border controls would be applied in practice. It also established a series of necessary accompanying measures to strengthen external border checks, to define procedures for issuing uniform visas, to take action against drug trafficking and to establish a common information sharing system (the Schengen Information System (SIS)); on 26 March 1995, the actual abolishment of border controls started when seven countries (the initial five plus Portugal and Spain) stopped checks at their internal borders.

Nowadays, the area comprises 22 EU (all but Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus, Ireland and the UK) and three non-EU countries (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland). Three more are about to join the club (Bulgaria, Romania and Liechtenstein). Recently, the European Parliament has given its green light for the accession of Bulgaria and Romania.

On the other hand, the abolishment of internal border controls has had consequences for other policy areas such as police, justice and customs cooperation, visas and asylum policy. According to Commissioner Malmström, Member States have a responsibility to control their external borders on behalf of the other Schengen countries. The EU agency Frontex assists Member States in this and should be strengthened very soon to be even more effective.

The European Commission is currently reinforcing the Schengen rules specially bearing in mind its Communication published on 4 May, in which this institution recommends to introduce temporarily the internal border control, based on objective criteria and respecting the Community method. There are some very exceptional circumstances where border controls in the Schengen area can be reintroduced for a limited period not exceeding 30 days: in the event of a serious threat to public order or internal security. Examples include major sports events that may give rise to a security risk.

On the tools used for the fight against organised cross-border crime is the Schengen Information System (SIS). It is a common database with stringent data protection rules. As of May 2011, the SIS contained more than 38 million entries on:

• over 1 million persons that were either missing (6%), wanted for arrest (4%), wanted for discreet or specific checks (4%), summoned to appear before a court (9%) or that were not allowed to enter and stay in the Schengen area (77%);
• almost 37 million lost or stolen objects for seizure or use as evidence in criminal proceedings, including blank or issued documents (86%) (e.g. passports, identity cards, driving licences, residence permits, travel documents, vehicle documents), vehicles and number plates (12%), firearms (1%) and banknotes (less than 1%).

The Commissioner stressed that free movement in the Schengen area is a right, not only for over 500 million European citizens, but also for all third country nationals, businessmen and tourists legally present in the Schengen area.