On December 21st 2017, Slovakia is celebrating 10 years since becoming part of the Schengen free movement area. "The great advantage of our membership of the Schengen zone is that we're no longer divided by borders in Europe but united by joint values. The removal of borders is extremely valuable and is a symbol of Europe's reunification, particularly for us, the people who were separated from western Europe by barbed wire for a long time and who saw some of their own people dying in their attempt to cross borders," said the head of the European Commission's Representation to Slovakia Dušan Chrenek on Wednesday.
Representatives of the opposition Freedom and Solidarity party consider Schengen to be one of the greatest benefits of the European integration. "We therefore find it very negative when some EU-member states are groundlessly violating the principles of this area as well as not protecting its external borders in an appropriate way," SaS spokesperson Katarína Svrčeková told TASR.
The recent migration crisis even led to proposals for simplifying the introduction of inner EU border controls which Slovak Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák criticizes. "Many countries including Slovakia find them absurd, which is a deadly cocktail for Schengen, and any measure of this kind would be a catastrophe for free movement," said Kaliňák.
According to the president of the Česmad Road Transpoters' Association, Pavol Jankovič, the potential dissolution of Schengen would have a negative impact on the Slovak economy. "Stopping the movement of goods at the borders would lead to increasing stocks, making the so-called just-in-time supplying system impossible to work. Today we are not ready for this kind of situation and it would lead to a disintegration of the economy, said Jankovič.
The Schengen free movement area was established in 1995 and now has 26 member states, some of which are not even members of the EU.
