2 days ago
How a Luxembourg village divided Europe
I am in the most EU-ish bedroom in the EU. That is to say, I am lying in a refurbished room in the handsome 14th-century Chateau de Schengen, in the little village of Schengen, Luxembourg. From my casements, opened wide onto the sunny Saarland afternoon, I can see the exact stretch of the river Moselle where, on a boat floating between Germany, France and Luxembourg, the Schengen Agreement was signed in 1985. This was the agreement that sealed Free Movement as Europe's defining ideal – one whose consequences are still unfolding.
I've been in Luxembourg for a week, on assignment, and this week has given me an insight into why the nations of the EU undertook their bold, remarkable experiment of no more borders. The first and obvious motivator was war. Luxembourg can look oddly new, or newish. Ancient-sounding villages are full of blocky 1960s houses. Supposedly medieval churches are clearly modern, lacking the rich patina of age. This is because they were all flattened in war – especially the last German offensive of the second world war, the Battle of the Bulge – which raged across snowbound Luxembourg from December 1944 to January 1945.
As a result, much had to be rebuilt or heavily restored. Reviving international trust took even longer, as the war here was brutal. In little towns like Diekirch, teenage Nazi conscripts casually gunned down innocent civilians in the streets. The angered Allies felt no huge need thereafter to take German prisoners alive.
The yearning to overcome this evil trauma – and reconcile – was one big driver of the EEC, which reached its frontierless, post-national apotheosis here in Schengen. But another was sheer practicality. Yesterday, my local guide, Anna, told me how she once had to show her passport every day to cross the Moselle to and from Germany. She can remember the queues and frustration. She recalls a crimped, claustrophobic Europe – like an office with too many cubicles.
Nowadays the quaint old customs houses have been turned into tourist bureaux or posh chocolatiers, and everyone breezes between countries with total freedom. The other day I drove a meandering route through the rustling green winelands and must have crossed between Lux and DE half a dozen times, barely noticing. At its best, Schengen is indeed wonderful.
But there's the geopolitical rub. Schengen at its Platonic best is magnificent. In practice, it may be turning into a tragic failure. A primary reason is migration – not within Europe, but without.
To illustrate my point, Anna told me another story of Luxembourg. She explained how, in the 1970s, the now-prospering little Duchy required workers. As she put it, with bracing candour: 'We chose the Portuguese because they were poor and wanted the work, but also because they are European, Christian, Catholic, like us. We felt they would assimilate.' And so they have. You can see unexpectedly good selections of Douro wines in Luxembourg supermarkets. Otherwise, the 15 per cent of the population that is Portuguese is barely discernible.
Schengen might, perhaps, be in much less trouble if every other country had followed those careful Luxembourg policies. But they didn't. France drew people from its old empire – Algeria, Morocco, sub-Saharan Africa. Germany imported millions of Turks, then another million Syrians under Merkel's idealistic Willkommen policy of 2015. Britain turned to the Caribbean, then Pakistan, India, Bangladesh.
Combining open internal borders with sovereign external migration policies – inviting millions from far outside Europe – was, in retrospect, bound to create a problem. It's like a flat share where everyone agrees to leave their doors open and split the rent, but each person gets to invite their own guests, who then stay forever, use the bathroom, and host loud parties. Irritation is guaranteed. Some housemates will get seriously annoyed.
Take, for example, the Somali migrant population in Holland. Tens of thousands of them moved to the UK under Free Movement. The UK could do nothing to stop this – as Britons duly noted. This is one example of how Free Movement, which peaked with Schengen, led quite directly to Brexit.
It was perhaps sheer bad luck that Schengen coincided with one of the most ill-conceived experiments of recent times: multiculturalism plus mass immigration. Or maybe it wasn't coincidence, and they derive from the same well-meaning, liberal universalism – only this time taken too far.
Frontiers are intrinsically sad – divisions within humanity made all too real
Whatever the case, as I write this in my room in the Chateau de Schengen, I can also read the daily and unhappy news that springs from Europe's mass immigration experience: of riots and deaths in France following the football victory of Paris Saint-Germain; of another call for an inquiry into rape gangs in the UK; of a hard-right Polish politician becoming president, vowing to keep Poland migrant-free; of once-peaceful Sweden – now 'the bombing capital of the West'.
Or I can read about de facto blasphemy laws in Britain and Denmark, introduced to placate militant Islam. And I can read of endless terror shifting across Europe untracked, leading even mainstream politicians in Germany, Austria, Italy to argue for the suspension of Schengen. Yes, of course there are multiple good, successful stories of integration and assimilation across Europe. But for many Europeans, judging by the remarkable electoral shift to the hard right, the good is now majorly outweighed by the bad.
Is there any hope for that faded but shimmering Schengen ideal of a borderless Europe? I'd like to think so. Frontiers are intrinsically sad – divisions within humanity made all too real – even if Robert Frost knew what he was talking about when he said 'good fences make good neighbours'.
The day is closing here in the Chateau de Schengen, and the summer sun sets lazily over the Auxerrois vines. They have a nice restaurant in the hotel, which has a classic French menu. I want to eat French food in Luxembourg while looking at Germany. It feels Schengen-y.
But as the waitress brings my tranche de foie gras maison, the capricious Luxemburg weather turns. It's been in the forecast for a while – now it has arrived: a cold wind from the Ardennes is sweeping down the Moselle valley. The rain lashes the ancient gardens, and the waiters drift toward the windows, watching as the parasols surrender to the storm.
