Schengen and Solidarity: The Fragile Balance Between Mutual Trust and Mistrust

This paper examines the functioning of the Schengen area. It analyzes the consequences of the ‘Arab Spring’ and of the arrival of Tunisian nationals on the island of Lampedusa, as well as the follow-up given to the request formulated by France and Italy aimed at changing the Schengen rules in order to enlarge criteria to reintroduce internal border controls. The author touches on other fields linked to the European area of free movement (e.g. asylum policy), whose management is also under suffering from tensions that have arisen in 2011-2012.

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