One step Back, two steps Forward. Restructuring the Schengen-Space and the EU Neighbourhood Policy in a Turbulent World

The European Union is at crossroad. The migration flows from all parts of the world to EU have changed the conditions under which the Schengen-space has to operate. The Schengen space emerged in order to create an integrated single European market. For a long time, the Schengen space allowed for a softening of the borders within the European Union, but lacked any strategy to harden the outer borders of the European Union. The lack of a well-thought out EU asylum policy further exacerbated the erosion of the Schengen space and solidarity between the member-countries. At the same time, the EU Neighbourhood policy was too ambitious without being equipped with proper resources. Instead of improving living conditions in the southern Mediterranean, corruption, mismanagement and authoritarianism prevailed in the Maghreb and Mashreq. This paper wants to study the conumdrum between the problems of the Schengen-Space and the failed Neighbourhood policy of the EU. Our thesis is that in spite of the growing importance of global governance based on the international rule of law, world politics is still in a transition between the “old paradigm” of an anarchic society of states in which war and conflict are still predominant and the “new paradigm” of global and regional governance based on peaceful solutions. The member-states of the European Union are still divided around these two main paradigms. Although the European Union is more value, some countries prefer to follow a national strategy and keep a state-centric approach to problems e.g. United Kingdom, the Visegrad, while others believe in European solutions e.g. Portugal, Spain,Italy, Germany and partly France. Although the European Union has developed its own Euromestic policy(a kind of European Innenpolitik) there are different levels of development in the transition from methodological nationalism to methodological Europeanism. This conditions the ability of the EU to act as one internally and internationally. The paper will therefore be divided in five parts. The first part will be about the transition from the international society of states to global governance. The second part deals with the problems of the EU to act together as one, mainly due to the differentiated integration towards methodological Europeanism. The third part is an analysis of the problems of the Schengen-Space and how to reform it. Fourthly, the role of how a better EU Neighbourhood in the southern rim of the Mediterranean could work. Last part will provide some conclusions. In short, the European Union elites should not always believe their own propaganda. Some realism is needed, to solve the above mentioned conundrum.