This topic is probably mostly of interest to our European members.
T-Rexit: Is the EU Evolving Towards its Own Extinction?
The EU's Supreme Court has ruled that member nations have no right to control their borders unless the EU gives them permission.
This issue has its roots in the 2015 immigration problem, but now pertains to the coronavirus issue.
"On April 2, the Court of Justice of the European Union, the EU’s “supreme court,” ruled that its member nations have no right to control their borders, unless they have first gained the EU’s permission to do so. This, at least was the essence of the ruling, which appertained to the migrant crisis of 2015 and which reprimanded those countries that had refused to open their doors to the mandatory quota of migrants that the EU had sought to impose on them."
. . .
"The EU’s Court of Justice also stipulated in its ruling that “those Member States can rely neither on their responsibilities concerning the maintenance of law and order and the safeguarding of internal security, nor on the alleged malfunctioning of the relocation mechanism to avoid implementing that mechanism.” Let’s reiterate what this court ruling states, as outrageous as it is, in order to fully comprehend its tyrannous nature. The member states of the European Union have no legal right to safeguard their own internal security, nor even maintain law and order, if the EU orders them to do something that endangers both. "
. . .
"There is really a delicious irony in the timing of the European Court’s decision, which exposes its sheer and preposterous pomposity, when every nation in the European Union is controlling its borders, in the face of the deadly threat of the coronavirus, without giving the least thought to seeking the EU’s permission. The European Court of Justice can pontificate as much as it likes. Nobody is listening and nobody cares."
GA
The real issue is not borders. Here in Europe all countries seem to be quite satisfied with what is happening to the borders. What you raise is only a side stage. Even inside Germany you simply can not enjoy a tourist trip from one county, region, state to another. You need a business reason to travel and with this all borders are open if you stick to quarantene regulations. So probably not so much contradiction on EU level.
The real issue inside the EU will be who is going to pay if the mess is over. This issue holds much more potential to bust the EU than some unimportant court decision.
Firstly, the Article you’ve used as your reference source is a right-wing American Republican Publication; which will almost certainly be anti-EU.
Secondly, the Article you quote from in ‘The Imaginative Conservative’ has itself misrepresented and misquoted the facts, and added its own anti-EU political spin; to produce an article that can only be described as propaganda.
If you want to know the true facts, and relevant background information, then they are as follows:-
The Court Ruling on the 2nd April refers to a specific case dating back to 2015 e.g. because of the complexity of the case, it’s taken 5 years for a final court ruling; and has nothing whatsoever to do with the current coronavirus crisis.
The Case in question is where, during the migration crisis of 2015, three Member States, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, failed to honour their agreement to accept 160,000 of the asylum seekers who had arrived in Greece and Italy.
The background to this being that in 2015 the EU was overwhelmed with over 1 million refugees (predominantly from Syria) during the height of the Syrian war, and Germany agreed to take the bulk of the 1 million refugees; but felt the other Member States should take some of the responsibility.
At this point it might help to give a loose comparison between the EU political system vs the USA:-
The USA has the President; the House of Congress and House of Representative, and the Supreme Court.
The EU has:
• EU Commission (equivalent to the President)
• EU Council of Ministers (loosely equates to the House of Congress)?
• EU Parliament (loosely equates to the House of Representative)?
• The EU Court = USA Supreme Court
For further clarity of the EU political institutions:
• The EU Commission is made up of a college of 27 Commissioners (one from each Member State). Each EU Member State Government appoints their own Commissioner to the EU Commission. The 27 Commissioners then nominate one of themselves to be President, but the EU Parliament must agree that selection e.g. a period of negotiation between the two once every 5 years.
• The Council of Ministers are the Heads of State for each of the 27 Member States e.g. each Member State’s Prime Minister or President.
• The EU Parliament is elected by the citizens of the EU once every 5 years.
The law making process is whereby the EU Commission proposes laws, but to become law they have to be passed by both the EU Council and the EU Parliament; usually on a majority basis, or a two thirds majority, depending on the nature of the law. But for constitutional changes or foreign affairs e.g. immigration; then the vote in Council of Ministers (Member State Governments) must be unanimous e.g. each Member of State has the right of veto on such matters.
Now returning the 2015 immigration crisis, Germany made proposals for other Member States to take a specified quota of refugees and pressed for the EU Commission to draft that into a Bill (as a matter of urgency), which they did; and although anyone of the then 28 Member States (Governments) could have used the veto, they didn’t e.g. the Council of Minsters rushed through the approval of the Bill unanimously. Therefore the proposal was subsequently passed by the EU Parliament and finally rubber stamped by the EU Commission, to become law.
If you read the full judgement from source, rather than from an unreliable source you will see that all the EU Court has done is make a Judgement; they have not imposed a fine or penalty on the 3 Member States in violation of the law. Following that Court Ruling, it is now up to the EU Commission on whether it wants to follow up on the court ruling or not e.g. now that the EU Commission has won its case it’s up to the EU Commission on whether to take further legal action to fine (impose financial penalties) on those three Member States or not.
As regards the borders: The Statement in your Article by ‘The Imaginative Conservative’ that read “the EU’s “supreme court,” ruled that its member nations have no right to control their borders, unless they have first gained the EU’s permission to do so.” is fake news. Nowhere in the EU Court’s ruling is such a Statement made because the Court Ruling had nothing to do with the border, it related to the failed agreement by 3 Member States in accepting 160,000 of the asylum seekers who had already arrived in Greece and Italy (two other Member States).
FYI: The way borders work in the EU isn’t that different to the way borders work in the USA e.g. the external border surrounding the EU is as tight as they can make it, just as the external borders surrounding the USA e.g. the borders with Mexico and Canada are tight borders.
Whereas the internal borders between EU Member States are very much like the internal borders between Member States in the USA e.g. free movement from one Member State to another. With the exception that in the event of national security, such as with the current coronavirus crisis individual Member States are legally entitled to re-impose internal borders between Member States as required, and (unlike the claim made in ‘The Imaginative Conservative’) do not need to seek the EU’s Permission to do so.
The Precise Legal Wording on the Subject of Internal Borders in the EU is as follows:-
“The Schengen Borders Code provides Member States with the capability of temporarily reintroducing border control at the internal borders in the event that a serious threat to public policy or internal security has been established.
The reintroduction of border control at the internal borders must remain an exception and must respect the principle of proportionality. The scope and duration of such a temporary reintroduction of border control at the internal borders is limited in time and should be restricted to the bare minimum needed to respond to the threat in question. Reintroducing border control at the internal border should only ever be used as a measure of last resort.
The reintroduction of border control is a prerogative of the Member States. The Commission may issue an opinion with regard to the necessity of the measure and its proportionality but cannot veto such a decision if it is taken by a Member State.”
Bringing down barriers: 25 years of Schengen: https://youtu.be/-wPzAhRicHc
by ga anderson 2 years ago
This could be just grins and giggles for some and supporting evidence for others.Here's the deal. . . A credible TED Talk speaker was talking about the Ukraine crisis. At one point he said from the first step of the invasion, when or lose, Putin has changed the world for the worst because nations,...
by rhamson 8 years ago
With a huge turnout and in the wake of a controversial killing of a MP the UK people voted to leave the EU. Many cited the control of its' borders as the main reason. A handful of other members are also considering a similar direction. Can the US learn anything from this or are we just terminally...
by peterstreep 6 years ago
It's over a two years after the referendum. And the UK is on the brink of Brexit.In those two and a half years a lot has changed. People are much more aware of what the consequences are now then when they voted.It's a complicated issue and you could ask the question if with such complicated issues...
by CMHypno 12 years ago
At a time when the EU is insisting on severe austerity packages in member countries, they are proposing giving themselves a 7% budget increase.Europe does not need any more blogging donkeys, it needs jobs and growth. Can any argument penetrate their myopic narcissism, or will the penny only finally...
by ga anderson 8 months ago
As a tangent to a tangent on another topic about British and American cultural differences, this issue looks like a good barometer. From a Baby-Boomers' perspective, it's so obviously the wrong direction that it denies human reality and makes Orwell's 1984 look like non-fiction, and Hollywood's...
by Angie B Williams 8 months ago
Which State will be next to decide that their leaders and their State's Supreme Court are more mighty, more powerful than the U.S. Constitution and the Power, which, by design and by LAW, belongs with the American people? That's what this is.....right? A power trip? Let's be the one to outdo all...
Copyright © 2025 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2025 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |