Resolution submitted by: JEF Political Commission 2 – Internal European Policy

First adopted by the Federal Committee in Turku on 21 October 2018. Re-adopted by the online Federal Committee on 26 June 2021. Re-adopted and amended by the Federal Committee on 11 November 2023 in Madrid, Spain. Re-adopted and amended by the Federal Committee on 19 April 2026 in Belgrade, Serbia. 

Free movement of citizens and the Schengen Agreements are two of the proudest achievements of the European Union. However, limits still exist and challenges are mounting.

JEF Europe,

• Recognising free movement of persons in the EU as one of the four important pillars of the Single European Market that constitutes one of the core achievements of European integration so far;
• Reiterating that the free movement of EU workers is a fundamental principle of European law enshrined in Article 45 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and developed by EU secondary legislation, such as Regulation (EU) No 492/2011 which requires equal treatment with regard to social advantages, and the Case law of the Court of Justice;
• Noting with appreciation that the Schengen Agreement has led to positive intercultural exchange, cooperation and contributes to economic development;
• Noting with concern the growing number of member states that are reintroducing border controls;
• Further concerned by the reasons EU Member States use to justify the reintroduction or prolongation of temporary internal border controls still reflecting crisis-mode policy-making on migration, asylum and borders often explicitly and erroneously linking the (secondary) movements of migrants to terrorism or other security threats;
• Reiterates that the Schengen Area is to be protected and guaranteed and thus should be separated from negotiations related to external policies and Member States’ home affairs which lay beyond the scope of articles 25-29 of the Schengen Border Code;
• Emphasising the crucial necessity for democratic accountability in border control and Frontex operations, which must be rooted in fundamental EU values, because protecting the Schengen Area must never serve as a pretext for policies or practices that do not uphold human rights;
• Stressing the fact that despite the understandable desire to feel secure, reintroducing border controls does not solve the problem of terrorism, rather, is detrimental to EU citizens, who cannot take advantage of the free movement within the Schengen area;
• Noting that, in many cases, the temporary reintroduction of border controls is transforming into permanent restrictions to the free movement of citizens within the EU;
• Noticing that the future of Schengen and non-restricted free movement in the EU has been strongly affected by the inability of EU member states to commonly manage the external borders and the lack of a united approach to immigration of non-EU citizens;
• Emphasising the fact that the presence of migration flows is not a crisis, but a structural fact, that needs longer term, structural solutions;
• Considering that in the European Federation internal borders should only have administrative value, and internal border controls would have no place in the Federation;
• Deeply concerned about the construction of border fences which challenges the very fundamentals of the Schengen Agreement and the European Project as a whole;
• Rejecting the negative and destructive discourse driven by some political forces and leaders about the arrival of refugees, and the labelling of free movement as ‘welfare tourism’:
• Regretting the instrumentalisation of problems arising from poor implementation of the freedom of movement by governments and parties in different member states;
• Deploring that the freedom of movement and establishment in another Member State for European citizens is limited by fragmented rules and missing simplification of procedures, preventing them from properly asserting their rights;
• Recognising that the Schengen area has enabled the free movement of persons across internal borders, while law enforcement and judicial authorities remain largely constrained by national jurisdictions, creating enforcement gaps that can be exploited by criminal networks and terrorist actors;
• Recalling JEF resolution “For a common migration and asylum policy”, “Promoting Youth Labour Mobility and Tackling Youth Unemployment in Europe”, “Calling for a fully fledged Health Union for the European Union”, “Advancing the European Union’s Social Dimension”, “On the creation of a Fiscal Union in the Eurozone”, “Strengthening European Citizenship Education”, “Patching the holes in the EU fabric: a federal Switzerland in a federal Europe”, “A European Federal Police -A Federal Response to Organised Crime”. 

JEF Europe therefore:

1. Demands the immediate and full re-establishment of the freedom of movement within the Schengen area without restrictions;
2. Calls upon the Member States to implement a coherent and effective federal border policy including cooperation in security and information exchange with adequate financial capacities to achieve their mandate of fully respecting EU borders and the asylum acquis, as well as the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights;
3. Calls for comprehensive and coherent policies on welfare, asylum, and border management, and stresses the importance of a holistic, well-coordinated and human rights-based approach to ensure the security, welfare, and prosperity of both EU citizens and those seeking refuge within its borders;
4. Asks the Commission, the European Parliament as well as the Member States to clearly refute common misconceptions about free movement by fully pointing out already existing possibilities within European law that allow for nuanced approaches to cross-border migration;
5. Calls for the completion of a fully European Citizenship that allows for truly free movement within the Union through the seamless portability of social rights, effectively establishing a single status for all residents instead of a sum of national citizenships;
6. Demands that all physical walls, fences, and barriers of any sort established between EU Member States be torn down, noting the negative messages such obstructions send and the dark connotations of their historical predecessors;
7. Urges European institutions to enforce EU law by opening infringement procedures against those Member States that abuse the notion of emergency situation to establish border controls within the Union;
8. Calls for compensatory payments that Member States establishing border controls should be required to pay to compensate the Union of any economic losses related to the border controls;
9. Calls for the introduction of strong non-monetary instruments that the European Commission should use to strictly limit and when necessary formally oppose unjustified suspensions of internal border controls by Member States under the Schengen Framework, including improved monitoring and transparent assessment of their necessity, proportionality, and impact;
10. Demands all EU Institutions to continue to support measures aimed at improving the access to free movement of people, such as the free movement of workers and students, and to ensure that cross-border workers and mobile citizens are not disproportionately burdened by remaining controls;
11. Demands that Member States respect the social rights of all citizens moving within the Union and thus helping to concretely implement and guarantee the European Pillar of Social Rights;
12. Demands that public authorities guarantee that mobile and cross-border citizens benefit from their welfare and social rights when dealing with lower local authorities according to the principle of subsidiarity;
13. Calls for stronger democratic accountability in the governance of the Schengen Area, and competence of the European Parliament in overseeing the reintroduction and prolongation of internal border controls;
14. Calls on the European Commission to adopt clear guidelines clarifying the notion of “serious threat” under the Schengen Borders Code in order to prevent its overly broad or abusive interpretation by Member States.

First adopted by the Federal Committee in Turku on 21 October 2018. Re-adopted by the online Federal Committee on 26 June 2021. Then, re-adopted and amended by the Federal Committee on 11 November 2023 in Madrid, Spain; and re-adopted and amended to its current form by the Federal Committee on 19 April 2026 in Belgrade, Serbia.