Granice strefy Schengen w obliczu początku pandemii koronawirusa – zasady prawne i możliwe scenariusze w 2020 roku

Abstract

The Schengen legislation is an integral part of the EU law, which translates into a right to free movement within the “borderless area”. This right can be, however, restricted, especially in the light of threats to public safety and order – and, less frequently, to public health. The restriction imposed on account of the above has become an event without precedent in Schengen’s history of over 30 years. The legal measures implemented on borders are absolutely exceptional on a global scale. One of them is the temporary estoration of control at the internal borders of the EU Member States. The other is the “restriction on non-essential travel to the EU”, meaning, in fact, closing of the EU external borders to citizens of third countries. One could propose a thesis that even the most significant achievements in the process of integration, including the Schengen Area, are temporarily inactivated in the face of an unpredictable supra-European threat. The mission of the EU and its Member States is to establish a new set of rules that will help the Schengen Area survive the early phase of the pandemic by suspending its main principles for some period of time. Will these new rules be extended? And if so – on what conditions? How will it affect the future of the Schengen Area? These issues have not yet been featured and discussed in scientific publications given the recency and relevance of the subject, neither have they been presented in a legal-dogmatic context