We do not usually think of the euro in the same way that we think of Schengen but, in fact, they both have a common parent: the decision, taken long ago, to open up Europe and to beget a single market that uses the same currency and where citizens are free to move from one area to another, just as they can do in the United States.

The proponents of the single market forgot that the US underwent the same process over a far longer period of time and there also had to be the Civil War in the meantime.

On the other hand, Europe has tried to become the US but has kept the individual sovereign states.

Then, it tried to get a single currency. We have seen, in recent years, how this project almost disintegrated during the crisis and how the euro has survived but only through the terrible cost of austerity imposed on most member states, an anaemic growth and a resultant lack of investment.

At best, it can be said that the euro is an unfinished business.

Then the member states wanted freedom of movement in such a way that people would be able to move from one country to the next with the minimum of fuss. So borders were removed (those my age still remember all those border controls between neighbouring countries and the delays at frontiers as passports were checked). Gone, too, were checks and controls at airports and people could walk straight out of the plane to the road and vice-versa.

In the past, especially in the run-up to the EU accession referendum, much was made of the possibility that henceforth Maltese citizens would pass through the EU nationals channel as against the ‘All Others’ channel.

With Schengen, this became better: people entering Malta – and, obviously, leaving Malta – could walk straight from the plane to the road and vice-versa. It was not what was promised, but even better. However, this does not come close to describing the relief felt by truckers and anyone else driving across the many frontiers of Europe, with just a sign advising you that you had entered such and such a country and had left such and such other country.

But when, this summer, wave after wave of migrants began travelling out of Syria and Turkey across the sea into Europe, and when that wave became a huge unstoppable tide, countries began closing their frontiers – Hungary first but then others.

Then, after the Paris massacre, the panic became general. France, naturally, closed its borders and other countries introduced checks at theirs, even Germany, although none of them declared that Schengen was dead.

In the aftermath of the Paris massacre, it became clear that the security network that supposedly operates quietly and efficiently in the background of Schengen is not working.

The death of Abdelhamid Abaaoud during a police raid on the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis was at one level a big success: the ringleader who coordinated this and other attacks was killed.

On another level, his death was also a nasty shock. What does it say about Schengen, if one of the world’s most wanted criminals was able to move freely between Syria, France and Belgium? That was not supposed to be possible.

The response, such as came from a meeting of European Justice and Interior Ministers consisted of an unambitious agenda which tinkered around with a few practical proposals.

Here in Malta, we had Minister Carmelo Abela who, in a statement to the House, spent his time attacking the Opposition’s media for scare stories but omitted to tell us either the conclusions of the council meeting or even what he thought of the inconclusive meeting.

We first had the government, especially the Prime Minister, telling us that the Syrians arrested in Italy were not connected to IS but were coming to Malta to work and then it was announced that Malta’s Schengen was to be suspended. Initially it was said this was because of the CHOGM, in the same way it had been suspended for the EU-Africa summit a couple of weeks earlier, then it was said that Schengen was to be suspended indefinitely and later that it was to be suspended for a number of days after CHOGM. And yet, it was also said there is no threat against Malta.

There is no doubt that the prevailing sentiment in Malta these last two weeks, especially in the wake of the Paris attacks and with CHOGM coming up, was in favour of abandoning Schengen and reintroducing controls.

But neither here nor in mainland Europe has the situation been clearly explained to the people. We, the peoples of Europe, have been left at the mercy of populist fears and panics.

The problem with Schengen, wrote Wolfgang Munchau in the Financial Times some days ago, is that within a few weeks it has lost its biggest asset – the trust of the population. He pointed out that President François Hollande clearly did not trust the system because why else has he reimposed border controls?

Munchau wrote: “For Schengen to regain trust, the control of the common external border would have to be of the standard of the very best of the member states, not at some fudged EU average level.

“The EU runs an agency, Frontex, based in Warsaw, tasked with coordinating policy and maintaining standards. But, crucially, in the Schengen area every country is responsible for maintaining its own external border controls. The external border of Greece, for example, is also part of the Schengen area’s common external borders as well.

“Frontex does not have the resources to do even its limited job properly, let alone to act as a federal-level border control unit, which is what is really needed. America has the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which are part of the Department of Homeland Security, and the US Coast Guard, which is a branch of the armed forces. In Europe, we rely on civil servants passing on information to each other. Or not – as it turned out.”

As we stand today, the real probability is that each country in the EU will reimpose its national frontier, as was the case in pre-Schengen times. It will be a huge blow to European progress, but then no one wants to play around when issues of security are at stake.

Such a break-up could mark a dangerous collective loss of trust.

On Thursday, the Financial Times carried a long article, signed by two of its most experienced journalists which explored the options available in the event that it is agreed that Schengen has failed.

1.                The expulsion of Greece for its many failures to abide by the rules,

2.                The creeping return of borders,

3.                An archipelago of asylum camps and

4.                Schengen retreats.

 

In my opinion, all this echoes – to a great extent – the kind of debate we had at the beginning of the euro crisis. Once again, note how the gross failures by Greece to implement what was previously agreed have endangered the entire project.

As Munchau said: “There are, in principle, two fixes: repair the Schengen area or revert to national systems.”

It is thus urgent that, before every petty dictator decides to abort Schengen, and before Europe reverts to national frontiers, a proper discussion is held to see if the system can be repaired.

Already, I feel, we are too late.

 

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