Europe without Borders: A History

Europe is a place of free movement among nations—or is it? The Schengen area, established in 1985 and today encompassing twenty-nine European countries, allows people, goods, and capital to cross borders without restraint. Schengen transformed European life, advancing both a democratic project of transnational citizenship and a neoliberal project of international free trade. But the right of free movement always excluded non-Europeans, especially migrants of color from former colonies of the Schengen states. In Europe without Borders, Isaac Stanley-Becker explores the contested creation of free movement in Schengen, from treatymaking at European summits and disputes in international courts to the street protests of undocumented immigrants who claimed free movement as a human right.

Schengen laid the groundwork for the making of a single market and the founding of the European Union. Yet its emergence is one of the great untold stories of modern European history, one hidden in archives long embargoed. Stanley-Becker is among the first to have access to records of the treatymaking—such as letters between France’s François Mitterrand and West Germany’s Helmut Kohl—and Europe without Borders offers a pathbreaking account of Schengen’s creation. Stanley-Becker argues that Schengen gave a humanist cast to a market paradigm; but even in pairing the border crossing of human beings with the principles of free-market exchange, this vision of free movement was hedged by alarm about foreign migrants. Meanwhile, these migrants—the sans-papiers—saw in the promise of a borderless Europe only a neocolonial enterprise.

Isaac Stanley-Becker is an investigative reporter for the Washington Post who has reported from across Europe and the United States. He earned a PhD in history from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar.

The Washington History Seminar is co-chaired by Eric Arnesen (George Washington University) and Christian Ostermann (Woodrow Wilson Center) and is organized jointly by the American Historical Association and the Woodrow Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program. It meets weekly during the academic year.

Transcript

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00:00:49:02 - 00:01:20:23
Christian Ostermann
Okay. I think I'll get us started. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to this session of the Washington History Seminar. Historical Perspectives on International and National Affairs. This is the first session of the spring 2025 series. And I think we have a really great program in store for you, this spring and today, this afternoon, we will focus on a new book by Isaacson Becker of The Washington Post, Europe Without Borders history.

00:01:21:00 - 00:01:47:20
Christian Ostermann
We're also very fortunate to have with us Emily Markov, Rutgers University, who will provide some initial comments questions. Launch our discussion to both of you. A warm welcome to the Washington History Seminar. I'm Christian Osterman. I direct the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy program, and I have the privilege to co-chair this series with Eric Arneson of George Washington University.

00:01:47:22 - 00:02:22:02
Christian Ostermann
Eric will moderate today. The Washington History Seminar is a collaborative effort of our two organizations, the American Historical Association, represented by Eric and the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program. Since 2010, the seminar has served on a weekly basis as a nonpartisan forum to discuss important new historical publications. Behind the scenes. We need to give credit to our, colleague Peter Beer Sarkar, who runs and produces, the session.

00:02:22:03 - 00:02:51:16
Christian Ostermann
Thank you. Peter. We'd also like to acknowledge our supporters. Welcome your support. As many of you know, this is an entirely pro-bono, series, event. And, we're always grateful for any of your, contributions, financial or otherwise, how to support the organization. And you'll find and, in the chat now or just go to our, websites.

00:02:51:18 - 00:03:19:17
Christian Ostermann
Finally, join us in two weeks. No seminar next week due to a major event in Washington. Join us in on January 27th for malign doubts. The first and last King of Haiti. The rise and fall of Henri Christophe. With that, let me just finish on a couple of technical notes. Today's session will be recorded and will soon appear on our respective organizations websites.

00:03:19:19 - 00:03:45:21
Christian Ostermann
You can download them and listen to them for free there. For the Q&A part of the seminar, we, like to get you involved. Pretty soon after the the discussion between our two main speakers is done. You can do so. And that's our preference for you to use the raise hand function in zoom. And you can join, the conversation directly.

00:03:45:21 - 00:04:13:03
Christian Ostermann
You'll be cued and, the moderator, in today's case, Eric, will call on you, you'll unmute yourself and, join with your comment or question. You can also use the Q&A function in zoom. And then we'll put, your comments and questions to our speakers. If there is time. I think that's it. So Eric, over to you.

00:04:13:05 - 00:04:55:02
Eric Arnesen
Thank you. Christian, it's my pleasure to introduce our first author of the Winter spring 2025 season of the Washington History Seminar this afternoon. Isaac Stanley Becker is an investigative reporter for The Washington Post who has written from across Europe and the United States. His byline has appeared on many, many articles over the past number of years. He received his BA from Yale and a PhD in history from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and today he'll be speaking about his first antitrust not last book, entitled Europe Without Borders A history, which will officially be published tomorrow on January 24th January 14th.

00:04:55:02 - 00:05:03:04
Eric Arnesen
Excuse me by Princeton University Press. Isaac, very glad to have you here this afternoon. Welcome to the seminar.

00:05:03:06 - 00:05:36:10
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Thank you so much. I'm so thrilled to be here, and especially on the eve of of the publication. I'm just so much looking forward to this discussion and being in such interesting companies. So instead of trying to do a kind of CliffsNotes version of the book, I wanted to focus on, in particular on the themes of border security and policing in Europe, and perhaps somewhat globally, depending on how the discussion goes, given the relevance of these issues to contemporary debates, and also because of this aspect of the book, I think unfurls other important themes fairly neatly.

00:05:36:12 - 00:06:16:00
Isaac Stanley-Becker
So in exploring the policing of the Schengen Area of Europe, it's worth beginning with arguments set forth by authorities on European security at the end of the last century. One was a police commissioner, the other was a privacy commissioner, and from differing vantage points each took stock of Schengen emergence as a transnational territory, a free movement. Notably, each commissioner viewed Schengen as a place of risk, and each was preoccupied by plans for what's called the Schengen Information System, a security apparatus designed to balance free movement with surveillance to pay for the lifting of physical barriers with the gathering of personal data.

00:06:16:02 - 00:06:42:04
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Consider the words of a French police commissioner, van der Linde Freeplay, a member of the intergovernmental negotiating group that drafted the multilateral Schengen Accord, which was adopted in 1985 and joined by an implementing convention in 1990, finally given full effect in 1995. Quote, free movement does not signify the absence of control, he said. Freedom and security are an inseparable pair.

00:06:42:06 - 00:07:17:08
Isaac Stanley-Becker
The abolition of internal borders between the member states of the Schengen accord cannot put at risk the internal security of those states. But consider also the words of German Privacy Commissioner Tyler Vickers, lawyer and data protection officer, who went on to combat Facebook's collection of personal profiles. Schengen rules for government processing of personal data, he wrote in 1990, were, quote, not suitable to ensure a constitutional required minimum standard for the protection of information or self-determination.

00:07:17:10 - 00:07:50:16
Isaac Stanley-Becker
These claims set in relief the problem I want to pose at the outset of our discussion how Schengen, a common space conceived as a laboratory for the free movement of persons and the creation of a citizens Europe, came to spawn a sort of transnational panopticon of the information age. My focus is on the theme of self-determination and put simply, the idea is this the lack of information or self-determination that put privacy at risk in Schengen, represented, at bottom, a crisis of democratic self-determination.

00:07:50:18 - 00:08:29:20
Isaac Stanley-Becker
That's because Schengen created a gaping jurisdictional asymmetry, a gap between new transnational instruments of surveillance and data exchange under the information system, an enduring national sovereignty over security policy and the administration of justice. Since its inception, Schengen has been a site of dual essence of freedom and security, but also of transnational intercourse and national governments. Ality. Such peculiarities were bluntly summed up soon after the accord entered into force by none other than the director of the Schengen Secretariat, a quasi administrative body with no substantive executive powers.

00:08:29:22 - 00:09:00:24
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Quote. The term Schengen institution is itself a paradox, said the director. He observed that, quote, Montesquieu would probably have a number of reasons to turn over in his grave, encountering a dynamic process like Schengen. This great tool, a tool for police cooperation and free movement, does not have institutions in the forms in which we're used to. Schengen is not presided over by a government that leads a parliament that votes for a court that judges end quote.

00:09:01:01 - 00:09:39:21
Isaac Stanley-Becker
In other words, Schengen was founded as a place without government institutions, but with a powerful transnational security apparatus to offset the risks posed by free movement across the frontiers of Western Europe. Therefore, until Schengen was incorporated within the protections of EU law in 1997, it was a territory where individual freedom was acutely at risk, precisely because the expansive security apparatus was subject to no countervailing transnational institutions either guaranteeing individual self determination or checking the police power of nation states augmented by new information technology.

00:09:39:23 - 00:10:06:10
Isaac Stanley-Becker
From this perspective, Schengen creation appears not simply as a bunch of skewing a nightmare or as a challenge to information or privacy. But according to foreign migrants within Citizens Europe, as a transnational project, a freedom marked by, quote, totalitarian scars. So time doesn't permit me now trace to trace the origins of the Schengen Area and the drafting of the accord, except in the barest of outlines.

00:10:06:12 - 00:10:30:01
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Nor can I do more than take note of the waning of the Cold War, the achievement of the internal market, the escalating fear of global terrorism, and the genesis of so-called fortress Europe, but all gave shape to Schengen submergence. The Schengen Agreement was adopted in June 1985 by five countries France, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

00:10:30:03 - 00:10:53:07
Isaac Stanley-Becker
It took its name from the village at the tri point border of Luxembourg, France and West Germany. Their delegates signed a treaty on free movement that expressed aspirations for both economic integration and civic solidarity, and there the implementing convention was approved five years later. The accord expressly stipulates that free movement within Schengen common space is intended only for Europeans.

00:10:53:11 - 00:11:20:02
Isaac Stanley-Becker
For nationals of European Community member states, exclusion was paired with liberty. Consider the Declaration of Aims at the 1985 signing ceremony. Schengen was, quote, a step forward on the path traced by the Treaties of Rome regarding the movement of people, goods, capital and services, a set of measures directly benefiting nationals of the European Communities, bringing us closer to what is fitting to called the Europe of Citizens.

00:11:20:04 - 00:11:44:10
Isaac Stanley-Becker
A pledge to prevent illegal immigration. Buttress the association of free movement with European nationality. Now the Schengen Accord does not use the language of rights, but the provisions on the abolition of controls at internal borders carried a new freedom, and although the accord did not create a human right to cross borders, it expressly affirmed that abolishing border checks would afford, quote, free movement of persons.

00:11:44:12 - 00:12:25:01
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Schengen thus marked the advent of a new principle of freedom of movement. One that extended beyond the logic of the market and the boundaries of the nation. The accord speaks of persons as free to cross national borders. By contrast, the Rome Treaty had allowed such mobility only to workers. For the first time. Schengen recognized persons as bearers of freedom to cross borders, not simply economic actors in a common market, a fundamental right of persons to free movement within the borders of a nation state had been affirmed by international human rights covenants, by the Universal Declaration, and echoed by a protocol to the European Convention adopted in 1963.

00:12:25:03 - 00:12:50:23
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Notably in 1963 as well, free movement was explicitly linked to the right of self-determination. In a report by the Special Rapporteur of the UN Sub Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities in Human Rights doctrine, the principle of self-determination has two meanings for states as aspects of national anti-colonial autonomy, and for persons as aspects of the right to freedom of association and political belonging.

00:12:51:00 - 00:13:17:14
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Construing article 13 of the Universal Declaration, which proclaims a right to freedom of movement within the borders of each state, and the right of an individual to leave any country and return the special repertoire, found that free movement is a right of personal self-determination and, quote, a constituent element of personal liberty. This was how Schengen authors conceptualize free movement as a, quote, personal freedom, that of coming and going.

00:13:17:16 - 00:14:03:13
Isaac Stanley-Becker
But the principle extended beyond the borders of the nation state. As a French foreign minister declared, quote, that the borders pass, pass, pass. In principle, you can pass in the Schengen Area. However, the free movement of persons was hardly un circumscribed. Notably, the power of self-determination by crossing borders was reserved to nationals of European member states and to Schengen states fell the authority to define the terms of national belonging within their own borders precisely, therefore, in limiting the barriers of free movement on the basis of nationality, Schengen routed its transnational guarantees in long standing precepts concerning the authority and the autonomy of national communities, as the spheres in which rights are exercised.

00:14:03:15 - 00:14:26:22
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Consider now the terms of the Schengen Accord, particularly the provisions for the Schengen Information System, the site where knowledge of persons was deposited, stored and distributed to member states. While Schengen was widely recognized as a laboratory of free movement, it is less well known that it was also a laboratory for Europol, the police agency of the European Union that began limited operations in 1994.

00:14:26:24 - 00:15:00:18
Isaac Stanley-Becker
From the outset of the negotiations, diplomats understood that Schengen created a new territory of risk, that the abolition of controls at common borders pose threats to national security and to self national self-determination. One compensatory measure was to fortify controls at the external perimeter of the new expanse of freedom, and above all, the aim was to stop the movement into and across the Schengen Area of individuals who might threaten security, not least foreign migrants from countries listed in confidential annexes as undesirable.

00:15:00:20 - 00:15:31:06
Isaac Stanley-Becker
In 1985, the pariah countries ranged from Haiti, South Africa and Yemen to East Germany, Poland and China. Data was considered critical from the start. The 1985 agreement provided for, quote, exchange of information to prevent the, quote, unauthorized entry and residence of persons, but information exchange proved among the most difficult measures to formulate, not only because of divergent national policies, but also because of concerns about data privacy.

00:15:31:08 - 00:15:56:12
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Here, then, was the heart of the problem a transnational information system designed to protect the security of the Schengen territory against free movements, risks threatened to trench on both national authority and individual privacy. Core aspects of self-determination A special Working Committee on the Information System was set up in 1988. Differences in national approaches to data protection were marked.

00:15:56:14 - 00:16:22:03
Isaac Stanley-Becker
France and West Germany. Each had comprehensive legislation regulating police files, Luxembourg had a statement of principles and the Netherlands was in the process of drafting the measure. But in Belgium there were no applicable rules. As France's data protection agency warned bluntly in 1988, quote A French citizen arrested in Belgium will not have the right to access and rectify information concerning him and the Sis.

00:16:22:05 - 00:16:53:04
Isaac Stanley-Becker
This capacity to access and rectify information about oneself was already a central cause of privacy advocates, and notably, the cause was couched in the language of self-determination, especially in the Federal Republic, where zealous speech demand had entered the lexicon of privacy debates. In 1983, that was the year that West Germany's Constitutional Court had suspended the execution of a census, finding that there was potential for abuse in the collection and processing of personal data.

00:16:53:06 - 00:17:18:12
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Listen to the words of the court in the context of modern data processing, the protection of the individual against unlimited collection, storage, use and disclosure of his or her personal data is encompassed by the general personal rights of the German Constitution. This basic right warrants in this respect the capacity of the individual to determine in principle, the disclosure and use of his or her personal data.

00:17:18:14 - 00:17:45:10
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Limitations to this informational self-determination are allowed only in case of overriding public interest. By 1990, the creation of a shared digital file had become a condition for approval of Schengen to implement a convention, yet agreement on data protection rules remains an obstacle. The final unresolved issue in the drafting of the convention, epic events unfolding in Europe impinged on the negotiations.

00:17:45:12 - 00:18:11:24
Isaac Stanley-Becker
A delay was caused by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the sudden, open and sudden opening of borders. West Germany had had obtained an an assurance from its partners that citizens of the East would not be treated as foreign nationals. Under the convention. But the prospect of unification raised new security concerns as it pushed outward and made more permeable the eastern borders of the Schengen territory.

00:18:12:01 - 00:18:49:17
Isaac Stanley-Becker
The implementing convention was finally approved in June 1990, and it provides in great specificity for the Schengen Information System, a computerized file to enhance security and policing across borders. It's termed a joint information system, in which each state creates a national section, all supported by a technical function, to be based in Strasbourg. The declared aim is enabling authorities in the Schengen Estate in the Schengen states, or by means of an automated search process, to have access to alerts on persons and property for the purpose of border and police checks and quote.

00:18:49:19 - 00:19:15:13
Isaac Stanley-Becker
For example, any nation could issue an alert on refusing entry based on a threat to national security. The system operates according to a hit no hit system, meaning it allows police officials to determine if a person or object is listed in the database and if so, it provides directions as to further action, including surveillance, refusal of entry, extradition and seizure of goods.

00:19:15:15 - 00:20:00:04
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Now, a single article addresses individual rights and self-determination. It bans collecting certain types of data, including information revealing racial origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, and health and sexual life, and thus adheres to a 1981 Council of Europe Convention on the Automatic Processing of Personal Data, but the deference to state sovereignty is marked. The convention explicitly specifies that the right of individuals to gain access to their data files is governed by the law of each Schengen state, so to only a nation issuing an alert is responsible for ensuring the data is accurate and lawful, and that state also has the authority to alter, correct and delete the data.

00:20:00:06 - 00:20:29:20
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Any person seeking to correct or obtain information about themselves goes to the courts of the individual. Schengen states. In the absence of transnational institutions, the protection of personal data, therefore, as information crosses borders, depends on national law. Well before Schengen enter fully into force. In 1995, the security apparatus had earned the epithet European Search Union. So let's turn to the ideas of the critics.

00:20:29:24 - 00:21:07:00
Isaac Stanley-Becker
The arguments against the intrusive reach of the surveillance system mounted by data protection advocates, human rights lawyers and undocumented immigrants. Here, too, we see transnational interchange as the critiques circulated in a network of protests within the Schengen Area. Again, time doesn't allow fully tracing these networks, but the arguments centered on a common claim that transnational modes of surveillance could not be controlled by existing institutions, thereby eroding principles of self-government and the autonomy of individuals founded on both privacy and free movement.

00:21:07:02 - 00:21:54:11
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Consider the claims of the President of France as Human Rights Leave League is due. For a French Jew who evaded Nazi capture as a member of the resistance and began practicing law after the Second World War. Writing about Schengen in Le Monde in 1999 1989, Truffaut highlighted the disjuncture between the power afforded by international security techniques and the inadequacy of national legal protections in critiquing the, quote, spatial extension or the very territorial ization of police power in plans for the information system, he argued, quote, to any new power of the police and therefore of the state must correspond a new control capable of combating it immediately and effectively if it is wrongfully exercised.

00:21:54:11 - 00:22:24:17
Isaac Stanley-Becker
End quote. He rooted his argument in the very logic of human rights based on the principle of, quote, no power without control, as he claimed that Schengen security apparatus poses a risk to the principles of self-government. Quote, this is a crucial democratic issue, he wrote, adding, quote, what is an authoritarian regime, if not a regime in which the police take precedence over justice?

00:22:24:19 - 00:22:49:21
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Likewise, the director of France's data protection agency warned officials in the Elysee Palace that Schengen must provide a right of digital self-determination. Quote, it is important, argued Jacques Sauvé, for public opinion, to see the Schengen Agreement as creating an area of freedom more than a police area. Recognizing a right of access and rectification could help to spread this idea.

00:22:49:23 - 00:23:15:01
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Experience shows that even if this right is not exercised, it constitutes a warning that makes police services more vigilant with regard to the quality of the information recorded and, quote data protection, he said. Quote, response to a dual concern for the protection of individual freedom and respect for national sovereignty. His argument thus linked the two meanings of self-determination in Germany.

00:23:15:01 - 00:23:44:07
Isaac Stanley-Becker
The data protection officer Attila Vicker pointed to the conflict between democracy and transnational policing. Quote democratic control of the Schengen information system is impossible. Such a European ization of police and prosecution conflicts with the national constitutional order. End quote, and consider the aims of a foreign migrant from one of the undesirable countries, Senegal. Hers was an outcry of the undocumented to non-European those who name themselves.

00:23:44:07 - 00:24:22:13
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Some paper without papers match against USA, who had made a passage from Dakar to Saarbrücken to Paris, condemned the, quote huge computer file, as she put it, claiming that a universal lies. One member states xenophobia throughout the entire Schengen territory. In a 1999 account of this on paper movement, she say bitterly assailed Schengen as balancing of freedom and security, claiming that the accord, quote, creates an area of free movement of goods and people, but at the same time strengthens cooperation among the states in terms of access to the common territory.

00:24:22:19 - 00:25:05:23
Isaac Stanley-Becker
End quote. Less than a decade after the after Schengen entry into force, a network of no border activists traveled from across Europe to Strasbourg, the headquarters of the Schengen Information System, to mount protests against the operation of data, enhanced surveillance. Their claims were not recognized by any national authority or vindicated by international institutions, but in the future of free movement within the Schengen territory, everyday denizens of citizens Europe saw risks to self-determination that would go unchecked if democratic institutions were overpowered by a transnational security system.

00:25:06:00 - 00:25:10:24
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Thanks very much.

00:25:11:01 - 00:25:38:23
Eric Arnesen
Thank you. Isaac. Before we continue, let me note to those in the audience you can queue up now if you have questions. As Kristian explained at the outset, you can use the raise hand function or preferred method, in which case I call on you and you get to pose the question in your own voice. Or you can use the Q&A function on zoom, in which case I read your question, but you can get in line now.

00:25:39:00 - 00:26:06:02
Eric Arnesen
Our discussant this afternoon is Emily Marker, an associate professor of European and global history at Rutgers University, Camden, where she researches and teaches about imperial and post-colonial Europe, Francophone Africa, race, religion, youth and global history. Her recent book, Black France, White Europe Youth, Race and Belonging in the Postwar ERA, published in 2022, received the George Lewis Beer Prize from the American Store Association.

00:26:06:04 - 00:26:30:08
Eric Arnesen
She is the immediate past president of the Western Society for French History, the current president of the Camden chapter of Rutgers AAUP. AfD, a member of the Faculty Advisory Board of Rutgers Center for European Studies. The editorial board of the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth. The Faculty and Faculty Advisory Board of the American Friends of the Documentation Center of the Austrian Resistance.

00:26:30:10 - 00:26:35:08
Eric Arnesen
Emily, we're glad you could join us this afternoon. Zoom screen all yours.

00:26:35:10 - 00:26:57:04
Emily Marker
Thanks so much. I'm really delighted to be here. This is going to be, a really great conversation. I love this book. And so I'm just going to talk a little bit more about Isaac's book. Very pleased, that he didn't give a sort of, thorough presentation of the book itself. And I get to do that.

00:26:57:06 - 00:27:31:06
Emily Marker
That's great. And I think that our comments together will, will inaugurate a great discussion. So Europe Without Borders tells the untold story of the origins of Schengen. The vast swaths of Europe that guarantees free movement, to European nationals and early conflict and contestation over its scale and scope. In 1985, as it has told us, five of the six the original members of the European Community signed a treaty in the tiny town of Schengen that would abolish internal borders for its citizens.

00:27:31:08 - 00:28:10:09
Emily Marker
The Schengen Agreement was part of a wider effort in the 1980s to imagine the European Community as something more than a common market and free trade zone, a more robust political and cultural citizen's Europe. After many attempts in the earlier periods of European integration in order to create a robust political and cultural community, falter in the 1950s. So with this relaunch of the cultural and political, project of Europe in the 1980s, by 2000, the Schengen Area had encompassed almost all of Western Europe, and the Schengen Schengen border regime was formally incorporated into EU law.

00:28:10:11 - 00:28:38:22
Emily Marker
Isaac argues that one of Schengen, the most consequential innovations was to extend freedom of movement in the European communities not only to economic agents, but more simply to persons. In this way, Schengen constituted, cosmopolitan European social space as well as a place of market exchange. And this is giving a sort of, this there's a fundamental shift that's giving a more humanist cast to the market paradigm of European integration.

00:28:38:24 - 00:29:12:04
Emily Marker
However, he underscores that that greater liberty entailed new forms of state surveillance and deepening conflict over the right of border crossing. Crucially, non-Europeans were excluded from the Schengen Agreement. In this sense, Schengen was simultaneously expansive and exclusionary, restricted by citizenship, Schengen ushered in a new security regime, the linchpin of which was the Schengen Information System, which Isaac just presented very thoroughly, which fortifies Schengen external borders, blocked illegal immigration and tracked foreigners.

00:29:12:04 - 00:29:40:24
Emily Marker
Transnational. Many Schengen countries tighten their immigration laws in anticipation of the end to internal borders, and or use Schengen as a pretext to curb the entry of, quote unquote, undesirables. And I'll come back to that word in a little bit. That's Isaac portrays Schengen as a, quote, system of dualism, of freedom and security, of unity and exclusion, and of cosmopolitan exchange and national sovereignty.

00:29:41:01 - 00:30:24:04
Emily Marker
Or put another way, Schengen could be seen alternately as a transnational space embodying the principle of free movement or a European fortress abridging the guarantee of human rights. So in the early chapters of the book, and I kind of read the book as sort of in two parts, Isaac tracks the treaty making process itself. He makes the compelling claim that Schengen took the form of an intergovernmental treaty without any democratic consultation, precisely because the narrow focus on your uneconomic integration and the founding documents of the European Communities left no room within community law to extend freedom of movement to persons beyond the realm of economic activity.

00:30:24:06 - 00:31:00:07
Emily Marker
European statesmen intent on dissolving Europe's internal borders, therefore had to turn to closed door negotiations as a workaround to realize the citizens Europe, which paradoxically alienated the European populace, and heightened anxieties about Europe's democratic deficit, which continues to be a main a major plank or platform of Euro skepticism today, as he astutely notes, and I quote, secret treaty making both undermine democracy and gave priority to exclusion, making a travesty of free movement and fueling racism.

00:31:00:09 - 00:31:29:02
Emily Marker
Still, there were counter trends. The OECD's 1990 Dublin Convention on Asylum acknowledged a common European humanitarian tradition of welcoming asylum seekers, whereas the Schengen Convention expressly declared a right to exclude, to refuse entry and expel asylum seekers. But there were also counter trends at the national level in response to Schengen rule, assigning asylum responsibility to countries of first entry.

00:31:29:04 - 00:31:59:20
Emily Marker
In its constitutional reform of national asylum law, France expressly preserved the power of the nation to grant refuge to any asylum seeker on its territory, regardless of whether or not they had sought asylum somewhere else, whereas Germany gave the nation power to refuse asylum claims if the claimant had passed through another country, Schengen country first lets us sort of first half of the of the book, and then in the latter chapters, I think I see Isaac makes similar analytical moves with regard to that dualism.

00:31:59:22 - 00:32:31:23
Emily Marker
Pairing a fascinating discussion of the emergence of a new invasive security regime based on transnational cooperation and digital surveillance and mining personal data, with a trenchant analysis of the Sun's Papua movement. The People Without Papers. If Schengen was a laboratory of free movement of people, as its architects claim, Isaac shows how the unrest of the suns pepper became a laboratory of rival ideas, competing ideas about what freedom of movement really means.

00:32:32:00 - 00:32:58:01
Emily Marker
Indeed, he shows that it was precisely the condition of non belonging in Europe that prompted this view to claim free movement as a human right in the first place. So in this sense, Isaac offers another compelling counterpoint of Schengen top down, undemocratic digital surveillance with the opposing force of what he calls globalized nation from below, brought on by these undocumented migrants as brokers of a new kind of digital politics.

00:32:58:03 - 00:33:24:04
Emily Marker
So this reinforces his central claim about Schengen deep internal contradictions and dualism, which I think is a really critical intervention in the field. And so now I'm going to move into some comments and I'm going to try and bring in, Isaac as I, as I unfurl them, because I think that, you know, us talking will just be more interesting than me talking.

00:33:24:06 - 00:33:53:13
Emily Marker
So I think that, you know, for for folks who aren't familiar with the literature on European integration, I mean, this book is a is just a valuable contribution to the scholarship on the EU. The field of European EU studies, is is lively, it's interesting, it's growing, but it is a peculiar discipline in that it is largely sponsored by the European Union and its institutions.

00:33:53:13 - 00:34:22:15
Emily Marker
Right. So the EU is is the patron of this of this discipline, which, you know, creates some problems in the way that the literature unfolded. And I think that you can really see that a lot of the literature on on specific EU institutions is, is, is very, very waggish. And it is coming from this sort of interpenetration between the sort of world of EU researchers and, and European institutions themselves.

00:34:22:17 - 00:35:06:10
Emily Marker
So that's one kind of issue with, EU studies as a field or the sort of literature out there. But there's also this sort of just structural problem of the lumpiness of the process of European integration, which makes studying European integration really challenging. You know, there were a lot of false starts in early European integration. There was a vision that I mentioned or alluded to before of, sort of of, of Europe, united Europe, supranational Europe as a, as a robust political community that that falters in the 1950s because of Cold War reasons and also because of colonial reasons.

00:35:06:12 - 00:35:35:09
Emily Marker
And so there's, when you study the history of European integration, you know, there's a temptation to take the take the form that the EU took for granted, ultimately takes for granted. Whereas, you know, there there were there was a lot of contingency. And a lot of false starts, as I mentioned, when we talk about European integration, also, I think, you know, there Kevin Featherstone, political scientist, has sort of separated out two registers of European ization.

00:35:35:09 - 00:36:03:17
Emily Marker
One sort of means, you know, synchronizing, national member states in the European Communities and ultimately EU to their law and policy to that European level. So that's what he calls like maximalist, version of your European ization. The synchronization of national law with EU rules and policies. And then there's a sort of more minimalist, version that is, that is sort of more diffuse.

00:36:03:17 - 00:36:41:20
Emily Marker
And just thinking about the way in which transnational processes in Europe has created, an increasing sense of, of European ness, that is also associated with the EU in many ways. Right. And so I think that, what Isaac shows in this book is that, you know, that sort of maximalist, version of European ization, you know, this legal and legal racist exclusion through Schengen of non EU citizens from the right to free movement.

00:36:41:22 - 00:37:14:06
Emily Marker
I think you show how, you know, all the member States are synchronizing themselves to, to make that a reality. And yet on the on the flip side, in the discussion of the songs Peppier, which is, a movement of undocumented migrants that starts in France but becomes a transnational collective movement across the continent. And in response to Schengen, you see the sort of civil society actors synchronizing to to transnational European trends and realities.

00:37:14:06 - 00:37:50:22
Emily Marker
Right. So I think that's really interesting. I mean, the biggest I think the reason why I was invited into this conversation is my own expertise on colonialism and European integration and the relationship between, you know, trying to, democratize, postwar Europe and also like, turn a turn a page on its, its colonial and racist past through European integration, which is paradoxical because, of course, that was pursued when most of the founding members of the EEC still had robust empires.

00:37:50:24 - 00:38:28:14
Emily Marker
So I think that, you know, Isaac is really tapping into a wider discussion and movement among scholars of the EU and European ization to think about the colonial origins of the EU and bring, the colonial legacies, of empire and decolonization into the way we study, European institutions. And so, you know, when, he shows us that it's like turning, turning to a sort of humanist cast on the market paradigm comes at the expense of, racist exclusion.

00:38:28:16 - 00:39:01:13
Emily Marker
But also what, you know, many scholars like a Chamberlain marvel called, like a re colonial exclusion, right. Like it is a neo colonial form of exclusion. So so maybe on that I'll ask my first question, sort of on that. Especially given what I said about the field of EU studies, you know, which is dominated primarily by, social scientists who work in a sort of present mode policy, you know, people that work on policy, political scientists, some sociologists.

00:39:01:15 - 00:39:24:12
Emily Marker
So I think that you bring a sort of twinned outsider perspective as, a, a Oxford trained historian and also as a journalist. And so I wonder if you could say a little bit about how those two skill sets came together for you. And in pursuing, there's this origin story of Schengen.

00:39:24:14 - 00:39:25:02
Eric Arnesen
Sure. I think.

00:39:25:03 - 00:39:27:23
Emily Marker
I have more questions, but, you know, that that's that's that's.

00:39:28:00 - 00:39:48:06
Isaac Stanley-Becker
That's great. And, Emily, it's it's really such an honor to be in conversation with you on these topics in particular. So. No, it's a terrific question. I'm sitting here in the Washington Post office. Yeah. Sort of. This is my day job. I began this project, the research for this shortly after Brexit. You know, really more so in 2017.

00:39:48:06 - 00:40:12:13
Isaac Stanley-Becker
But shortly after Brexit and when there were lots of, elections on the continent in the Netherlands, France, Germany that focused in large part on migration and security, terrorism and the aftershocks of Brexit. And this was this moment when it seemed like there was this populist wave crashing across Europe. That narrative was too simplistic, but in some ways, we're still living with that wave.

00:40:12:13 - 00:40:36:00
Isaac Stanley-Becker
And in fact, it's the the wave has grown more powerful, you could even say. And so it's in certain ways, the project began as a journalistic project. I was interested in the origins of some of these questions, but it was it was born out of interviewing politicians and officials, and every day, people voting in these contests, you know, roiled by some of these questions.

00:40:36:02 - 00:41:05:05
Isaac Stanley-Becker
And, and it got me thinking about Schengen and this system of open internal, borders and free movement. And then I realized that there hadn't been a history of Schengen written in large part because there's a 30 year embargo on those diplomatic records. So, again, this is like, marrying sort of journalistic instincts and historian's instincts. This is this is like a historical scoop to be the first person to access some of these records and to be able to, for the first time, tell a kind of comprehensive history of something.

00:41:05:05 - 00:41:46:07
Isaac Stanley-Becker
And, you know, I never I never saw it. And I still don't see it as a EU history per se, in part because Schengen was negotiated outside of EU institutions until the very end of the 20th century. It wasn't even part of EU law. This was done entirely at the inter-governmental level. So while events within the EU progress toward the single market, you know, foremost among them, but others, mattered greatly to the Schengen discussion, and it was considered a laboratory for that kind of process and progress, the thinking that was being done and, the figuring out of these concepts and the the contests and the debates were happening outside of EU institutions and,

00:41:46:09 - 00:42:10:08
Isaac Stanley-Becker
you know, centrally among those this issue of this, this change in the meaning of free movement that you go from a economic concept in a commercial paradigm, a free movement that arises from the Treaty of Rome, where you're allowing workers to move freely across borders. People engage in economic pursuits to a more humanist idea of free movement, at the very same time gives legitimacy to economic integration.

00:42:10:08 - 00:42:43:08
Isaac Stanley-Becker
So there is keen awareness that to to advance progress toward the single market, to make a single market happen by 1992 and 1993, you have to provide civic legitimacy to this process. And the way to do that is to extend it from beyond the arena of the market, toward a more civic vision. So, so I became very interested in that, in that switch and what it meant that you went beyond the market paradigm precisely to create legitimacy for primarily economic integration.

00:42:43:10 - 00:43:04:06
Isaac Stanley-Becker
And, and, you know, again, that that was, that was a kind of lineage of the idea of free movement and a history of free movement that was separate from EU studies, from an analysis of how the European Commission operates or how the European Parliament operates or so on and so forth.

00:43:04:08 - 00:43:30:22
Emily Marker
Right. Think, well, something else that, I wanted to ask you about was the sort of echoes between the sort of current refugee crisis that we've had in Europe that put so much pressure on Schengen, since the 20 tens and, and the World War Two era. And your mention of, as you say, sort of re reignited that for me.

00:43:30:22 - 00:43:59:00
Emily Marker
I mean, this language of undesirables is really notable for that reason, right? Like, this is the language that was used for, Jewish and other Central and Eastern European refugees, during in the run up to World War two in France. And and it made me think, you know, as I was reading your book, I kept thinking of a film, German film by, director called Christian Petzold called transit.

00:43:59:02 - 00:44:24:24
Emily Marker
That was an adaptation of a World War Two era novel. But the way that the film is filmed is and and and so it is the story of, you know, a German speaking refugee in first in Paris and then in Marseilles trying to get out, but, the way that it's filmed, is with without period.

00:44:25:01 - 00:44:53:08
Emily Marker
Period infrastructure. So everything is filmed, like as, on the streets of Marseilles today, when people, when there are roundups, they are, you know, French, national security police in the riot gear that they wear today. And when they're looking at, you know, sort of spaces where migrants gather, some of them are look more like today's refugees than refugees from the 40s.

00:44:53:08 - 00:45:23:07
Emily Marker
So there's I wonder if you could speak to sort of the way that you see this echo of the past. I mean, in the book, you frame this as a postwar project, to, to do something different with Europe. And yet, you know, I think in the, in the Petzold film, you see the, the striking, overlaid historical, these two temporal moments as if there are perfect continuity.

00:45:23:07 - 00:45:39:23
Emily Marker
And Schengen seems to be a really important piece of, of why that's happening now. So I guess I wonder if you have, thoughts on that sort of, you know, trans temporality between the two moments?

00:45:40:00 - 00:45:40:20
Christian Ostermann

00:45:40:22 - 00:46:20:20
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Yeah. I think I would say two things about the connection between the past and the present on the refugee question and the question of undesirables. One is that and this is this is, and a day to day life for people who, you know, live in Europe. The, the, kind of madness of the system of the country of first entry that the, the country where a would be asylum asylum seeker would be refugee arrives is the country that has authority over that asylum claim, which obviously burdens Greece and Italy and other countries vastly more than, you know, Finland or Denmark.

00:46:20:22 - 00:46:42:16
Isaac Stanley-Becker
You know, northern European countries. And, this is something that European leaders have been, you know, wrestling with for years, but especially since the 2015 crisis, and there's been no progress on any kind of new system of rules that are being hashed out, I think, coming into effect or the end of next year or this year or 22 and then into 2026.

00:46:42:18 - 00:47:13:14
Isaac Stanley-Becker
But this principle, the country of first entry, which is codified in the Dublin Regulation, actually arises in Schengen. Schengen is a model for this system, as they're working out what to do about asylum and national authority. As internal borders open. It's developed this system, the country for a first entry. And this is ultimately codified in Dublin. So I think this is again one of the kind of forgotten imprints of Schengen in the chaos of Europe's system of migration and refugee management.

00:47:13:16 - 00:47:37:07
Isaac Stanley-Becker
You know, and then the other point on the undesirables I was I was also struck by this language. And this was not Lang this was not language that was included in the ultimate treaty. These were part of either diplomatic discussions or these secret annexes, these confidential annexes that listed countries, and ranked them according to risk on various metrics as part of developing a visa system.

00:47:37:07 - 00:48:06:06
Isaac Stanley-Becker
So once you open the internal borders, there is a classification of certain countries whose citizens would be allowed entry for short term visas based on different sort of standards. And, and it it's, it's striking in a way, because I think the popular conception of Schengen and what it allowed in terms of free movement is that it was this humanitarian, liberal vision of essentially letting people in and letting them move.

00:48:06:08 - 00:48:30:23
Isaac Stanley-Becker
But, you know, it's very much not the case. And the negotiators themselves were clear eyed about this. I had a chance to speak with a number of them. And, you know, it was kind of remarkable to hear them just reckon with the kind of security protocols and measures designed to keeping outsiders out that were necessary, and the frankness about the fact that that was part of the point of the agreement.

00:48:31:00 - 00:48:54:24
Isaac Stanley-Becker
It was designed to create convenience and ease for internal travelers, for citizens of these states. But it made no pretensions about opening things up and offering kind of humanitarian Europe up as this, kind of beacon or haven for people to move into and travel more freely. So this, you know, back to the dualism question. It was really stark.

00:48:54:24 - 00:49:11:20
Isaac Stanley-Becker
And so, yes, it meant, speaking of the outsiders in terms of the language of undesirable, because, you know, they were undesirable to, this system, which was designed to safeguard freedom and opportunities for European citizens and only European citizens.

00:49:11:22 - 00:49:39:24
Emily Marker
Yeah. And I mean, the that's the first entry point issue is actually really important. And get to go back to what I was saying about, you know, the the colonial legacies of so much of this post-colonial migration that Europe is seeing, you know, in order to get to France of a former citizen from the late colonial empire might be, you know, taking the sea route and, and trying to get to Italy.

00:49:39:24 - 00:50:14:15
Emily Marker
Right. And, and so I just wanted to actually read I mean, you mentioned Sicily, that, sounds Pepe activist, from Senegal who ultimately had to return to Senegal after leading, an uprising of some Pepe. Yeah. I just wanted to read, a long passage that you have in her, in your book, citing her, but because I think that it so poignantly captures this, this post-colonial aspect of the story.

00:50:14:15 - 00:50:35:04
Emily Marker
So I'll just read this for a second. This is on page 239, Isaac's book. I say How France Colonized My Country of origin, how our countries were impoverished by colonization, neocolonial colonization, how these countries are crumbling under the weight of debt, how these Africans, who was relations with the state administration, are judged today, are treated in this country.

00:50:35:04 - 00:51:03:08
Emily Marker
How our grandparents had fought alongside French soldiers to repel the Nazi occupation. And I think that so much of that sense of, legitimate claims on citizenship or if not citizenship, at least the right to residence and work in, you know, ex colonial metropole does stem from like the service during World War two that, you know, whole generations of colonial subjects and later citizens contributed.

00:51:03:08 - 00:51:33:16
Emily Marker
So I think that there's a, there's like a another layer in that echoing between past and present that, that I find really compelling. And I guess I just wonder if if you hear those conversations, if you hear those conversations among folks working in European bureaucracies today, like, I mean, has the needle moved for them, like post 2020? I mean, there's so much more,

00:51:33:18 - 00:51:56:19
Emily Marker
Transnational activism, that is sort of, you know, drawing on the anti-colonial tradition of descendants of, you know, colonized populations. So I wonder if that's if you see that actually making a dent at all in the way that that folks are talking about this or if this is just, you know, continually sort of brushed aside, I mean, in lots of ways.

00:51:56:19 - 00:52:23:02
Emily Marker
I mean, we we see the ways that it is. I mean, the influx of university students fleeing Ukraine, during the, with the onset of the war there. Right. You saw European, West, Western and Central European universities welcome ethnic Ukrainians and refuse entry to the tens of thousands of African and South Asian students that we're studying in Ukraine.

00:52:23:02 - 00:52:28:06
Emily Marker
And that's like sort of the same kind of parallelism that you see, in your analysis.

00:52:28:08 - 00:52:49:13
Isaac Stanley-Becker
I'm really glad you mentioned Ukraine and, and, and read that a quote which comes from when she was pleading her case before the Paris court and then to the European Court of Human Rights. She's a right. She's detained and then tried, on, on these grounds of, you know, being part of this protest and then staying in France unlawfully.

00:52:49:13 - 00:53:19:04
Isaac Stanley-Becker
And she pleads her case before this Paris court and then before the European Court of Human Rights on, freedom of association grounds. And she doesn't win her case. But I looked at the, I looked at the she doesn't win her case, but unfortunately. But but but, interestingly, the court finds that her status of unlawful entry and unlawful residence in France alone doesn't justify or didn't justify an infringement on her right to free assembly.

00:53:19:04 - 00:53:59:21
Isaac Stanley-Becker
So there's a finding that France was justified in breaking up this action and in the expulsion. But as part of this, there is a ruling that the there is still a right to freedom of assembly, even if there's this condition of illegality, that she was there legally. Despite that, she's still afforded freedom of assembly. And I looked into the, the, kind of afterlives of this case, which she loses, but again, has this kind of important doctrine that set forth and it's it's actually cited a lot in freedom of association, cases, including, you know, quite interesting litany in cases arising from the Maidan and the protests that they made in 2014.

00:53:59:23 - 00:54:30:03
Isaac Stanley-Becker
So, you know, uprisings against, Ukraine's pro-Russia, authoritarian leader that are violently suppressed. And there are cases that arise from this that are arguing for freedom of association. And in the decisions is cited at, the case, Cece's case, in which there is a finding of, you know, again, freedom of association, is is is, you know, sacrosanct despite these conditions of illegality.

00:54:30:03 - 00:55:02:16
Isaac Stanley-Becker
So you have the protests of undocumented within Europe coming to vindicate the efforts by those beyond Europe protesting to enter the freedoms and opportunities and guarantees that Europe allows. And I think in light of, you know, the situation in Eastern Europe, in Ukraine and Russia today, I found that extremely interesting. So, so and I, you know, getting back to your question, I do think that I would say that's how in some ways, this, still lives with us today.

00:55:02:16 - 00:55:33:05
Isaac Stanley-Becker
I wouldn't say there's a great degree of, thinking through of kind of post-colonial deaths, but I think there is, you know, in the, in the, discussions about Ukraine and deaths to, you know, parts of Eastern Europe and efforts to prevent Russian revanchist, I think that's where that's where it's, used and, and leveraged in some way.

00:55:33:07 - 00:55:50:16
Emily Marker
All right. I was going to ask you to say more about the CC versus France case, but you've, you've you've done that. So that's great. Maybe, in light of time, I'll just ask one last question. Which is, I've seen you refer and you do this in the book and also in an excellent op ed.

00:55:50:16 - 00:56:06:23
Emily Marker
You had come out in The Times today, refer to Schengen as death by a thousand cuts. And so I wonder if you could say more about, you know, what, what has happened and where where we're going if you have.

00:56:07:01 - 00:56:07:07
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Yeah.

00:56:07:07 - 00:56:27:24
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Thank you. It's what I, I read some of the comments which you're never supposed to do and I ordinarily never do for my, for my reported pieces because it's, you know, two comments on these articles. Anyway, no offense. Comments. But I read some of the comments and someone said, this is so hyperbolic. You know, I live in Europe and there's still freedom of travel in many places.

00:56:27:24 - 00:56:58:05
Isaac Stanley-Becker
And that's very much the case. But, you know, the piece begins with a moment when I was crossing between France and Germany, and I was stopped because, especially since September, a German borders, there's been a, reintroduction of controls. And really, across Europe, there has been, a restoration of checkpoints in many that, of course, not every border crossing there is and is still many places possible to cross without being asked for identification.

00:56:58:07 - 00:57:17:14
Isaac Stanley-Becker
You know, within within the Schengen treaty and within the Schengen system, there was an allowance and a possibility of deviating from its terms and re-introducing controls for reasons of national security or public policy. And as I mentioned at the outset, the Schengen member states, the individual nation states, were given a lot of autonomy for how they did this.

00:57:17:16 - 00:57:48:23
Isaac Stanley-Becker
It does set out certain terms. There has to be, you know, certain reasons, has to be for a limited period of time. And there are supposed to be advance notice to the other member states and the kind of wholesale reintroduction of controls, especially in recent months. But, you know, going back to the refugee crisis of 2015 into Covid war in Ukraine, the war in Gaza, other shocks in the Middle East have just meant a kind of wholesale reintroduction of controls and in some cases, Germany's case in September, you know, in all of its land borders.

00:57:49:00 - 00:58:08:06
Isaac Stanley-Becker
So I do think we're moving into a kind of different mode here, where it's not just a spot check because of some security situation or world cop or a terrorist attack. That means for a six weeks period, there's a there's a check at a certain border, but a kind of willingness to suspend Schengen that's at a large scale.

00:58:08:06 - 00:58:32:14
Isaac Stanley-Becker
I was interested in remarks that Donald Tusk of Poland, made and former president of the European Commission, made, after Germany's move in September, where he called it unacceptable and said it was this, you know, suspension of the Schengen Agreement on a large scale. You know, it's it's fascinating to me that Bulgaria and Romania are new entrants into Schengen just as of this year and already at certain checkpoints.

00:58:32:14 - 00:59:00:02
Isaac Stanley-Becker
They have controls. So they're part of Schengen. But how much does that mean, really, if, practically speaking, within days of their entrance into the agreement, they have controls. So it's a it's a it's an odd kind of balance and indeterminacy, I would say, I think that the freedom to travel and freedom of movement in opinion surveys show is really popular among the European populace, even though there has been a kind of backlash to other aspects of European integration.

00:59:00:02 - 00:59:30:10
Isaac Stanley-Becker
And Brussels, you know, remains hugely unpopular. There's a deep appreciation for what this is, man, in terms of the ability to study, work and travel across borders. But it's also become, kind of political, politically toxic to allow this kind of, laxity in a moment of rising concern about immigration, rising concern about terrorism and Schengen has been a target for the far right, for the National Front, France and other far right parties for years.

00:59:30:14 - 01:00:06:10
Isaac Stanley-Becker
But it's not far right parties that are acting against Schengen. It's it's centrist parties. So, I think that, you know, it'll be interesting to see how far this goes and, especially with what happens with these new, refugee, rules in terms of the authority for processing asylum claims. But I do think we're in somewhat different territory when we have kind of wholesale reintroduction of checks at all land borders instead of spot checks for, you know, particular reasons or events.

01:00:06:12 - 01:00:25:15
Eric Arnesen
Thank you. Thank you very much. We're now going to open this up for discussion. We have a number of folks with hands up. But first Christian, has a question that he would like to pose to get us started. Christian.

01:00:25:17 - 01:00:51:24
Christian Ostermann
Oh, well, first, thanks. Thanks. I and thanks, Emily. And actually, Emily, let me the last question preempted prompted mine. So let me, ask a different question. Just, you know, we're we're at a historical seminar here. You're a historian, you're investigative journalist. Talk a little bit about your sources and how your, you know, the toolkits you brought to, this, study. You know, how did you penetrate this, information, the security system, that you write about.

01:00:52:01 - 01:01:22:00
Isaac Stanley-Becker
The book is largely based on archival, sources. As I mentioned, the there's a 30 year embargo on many diplomatic records. So 1985 or right around then until 2015, 2016, 2017 or right around then, this was just lifting. So in my initial, you know, contact with the archives, it was really exciting to be discussing this with them and saying, you know, many of these are just now open and have never been looked at before.

01:01:22:02 - 01:01:51:21
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Most of the archives are actually, with the individual member states because Schengen was negotiated, the inter-governmental level, a lot of the, hashing out of the agreement lives with the foreign ministries or internal or ministries of the interior in the, in the member states, especially France and Germany, given their leading roles in the negotiations, there are some records in in Brussels that I looked at and also some at the, European University Institute in Florence.

01:01:51:23 - 01:02:17:17
Isaac Stanley-Becker
So, archives in France, Germany, Belgium and, you know, in Italy forms really that the crux of it. I and then a range of other, you know, treaties and, you know, diplomatic, material either available online or that I was able to access, say, from the European Court of Justice. I did do, and, you know, a number of oral histories for the book, sort of putting my traditional journalistic practices to work.

01:02:17:17 - 01:02:48:15
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Fortunately, a number of the Schengen treaty makers, the negotiators were still living, and I and I was able to speak to some of them, along with, along with security officials. I talked to an early leader of Europol who was closely involved with the administration of the Schengen Information System. And also, I spoke to truckers who spent their days, driving refrigerators and other wares across Europe to hear from them about what it was like to all of a sudden not have to wait.

01:02:48:15 - 01:03:11:03
Isaac Stanley-Becker
And that with these burdensome customs checks, you know, probably the most fun I had doing the interview was I found the, there's a cartoon artist that features prominently in the book because there's an important case that she brings to try to vindicate her right to travel across borders and not pay a special fee just levied on foreigners.

01:03:11:03 - 01:03:34:08
Isaac Stanley-Becker
And it's a case that reinforces the kind of commercial paradigm, a free movement arising from the early European treaties, and explains why the Schengen treaty makers had to operate at the inter-governmental and go beyond that. So this case of this cartoon artist and, that's decided in 1984, and I found her through the Facebook page of her, the agency or the school that she still works with.

01:03:34:08 - 01:04:01:23
Isaac Stanley-Becker
And I just sort of cold called her and explained to I was that, I mean, this this to me is like what I do every single day, every hour. So it's actually more so my practice than, you know, bent over archives. So, some of those interviews came quite naturally. And, the, cartoon artist I spoke to, she actually drew something for the book, which was also lovely to be able to include her little etching of Schengen, you know, in the pages of the book.

01:04:01:23 - 01:04:19:18
Isaac Stanley-Becker
So, you know, I was lucky to work on history that both had archival materials. And then also some of the people who were instrumental to it were still alive and were able to share their recollections and enliven some of the material, because sometimes diplomatic paperwork can be a bit dry.

01:04:19:20 - 01:04:36:19
Eric Arnesen
Thank you. Nur Kazi has had a hand up for a while. If you would unmute yourself. You can pose your question.

01:04:36:21 - 01:04:47:18
Eric Arnesen
We need you to unmute yourself.

01:04:47:20 - 01:05:04:13
Eric Arnesen
All right. We are going to move on to Thomas Adams. If you would unmute, you can pose a question.

01:05:04:15 - 01:05:33:01
[Audience question]
Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. This is just fascinating and, so enlightening. I had just a vague recollection that at the beginning of the Schengen accords, there was an exception because Germany had, some requirements. And I was just wondering if I'm correct on that, whether those, exceptions to the original courts, set some precedent for the kind of issues that are under discussion in your.

01:05:33:03 - 01:05:35:14
Isaac Stanley-Becker
What kind of exceptions?

01:05:35:16 - 01:05:58:20
[Audience question]
I thought it was involved, Eastern Europe and people coming in, from Eastern Europe, that, were of concern to Germany. But I must admit that I'm rather vague. And just remember that, in the, reading about the original Schengen accords, there were some exceptions made, and I thought on behalf of Germany.

01:05:58:22 - 01:06:22:00
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Well, right. In the final months of the, negotiations over the implementing convention in 1989 and 1990, there was a, there was a delay when the Berlin Wall fell in, in, in the fall of 1989 because Schengen, it hadn't been anticipated that it would encompass, you know, both West and East Germany had just been West Germany as part of the agreement.

01:06:22:00 - 01:06:47:05
Isaac Stanley-Becker
And then the Berlin Wall fell. False reunification is anticipated, and all of a sudden there is a need to figure out what this will mean if it if this extends to, reunified Germany. So that causes a delay in certain stipulations about, allowances for, German nationals living beyond the Federal Republic. But, you know, once it signed in June 1990, things proceed.

01:06:47:07 - 01:07:07:21
Isaac Stanley-Becker
There are other there are other, you know, concerns, more minor concerns that come up there is the agreement once it was, signed in 1990, then went to the individual member states for ratification to the national, you know, through the national parliaments. That concludes in 1993 with Germany. But then it's another year and a half, two years before it actually goes into effect.

01:07:07:23 - 01:07:35:14
Isaac Stanley-Becker
And that's because certain conditions had to be met about the fortification of external borders, about the operation of the Schengen information System, you know, this expansive data system. So there's a kind of back and forth and a haggling at that point as well, about whether each state has met its various conditions. But yeah. So those are sort of two moments when there's, you know, a question about how quickly or on what terms Schengen is going to go into effect.

01:07:35:16 - 01:07:36:22
[Audience question]
Thank you.

01:07:36:24 - 01:07:45:13
Eric Arnesen
Thank you. Leon Fink, please unmute.

01:07:45:15 - 01:08:23:06
[Audience question]
Yes. Thank you. Isaac, want to ask two related questions and drawing on your expertise. First you you, you mentioned, as did Emily. The, alternatives raised to what seems like a tightening and, rather depressing, general pattern, of, restrictions on movement. Coming. The alternative coming from the some happier people, the migrants themselves.

01:08:23:06 - 01:08:59:13
[Audience question]
I wondered if you would, could expand a little on what their vision is of an alternative Schengen type order for, movement and, expression, and related, to that kind of generally darkening scenario that you paint. I'm wondering, I don't think you mentioned it specifically, but I'm wondering how, graphically, you see the rise of right wing populism in Europe to this, tightening of the Schengen pattern.

01:08:59:15 - 01:09:40:00
[Audience question]
And in particular, since you're speaking to a US audience and, but and, and I understand why you don't want to go, you know, beyond your, your, your subject, but, you know, I'm wondering if you see any parallels or rhyming between, the pattern in Europe and our current situation with undocumented in the US, with, with an imminent, perhaps, you know, crackdown on, movement, within the U.S of people designated as criminals or just for crossing the border.

01:09:40:02 - 01:09:51:15
[Audience question]
And, if you could comment on that and what you see as, possible strategies, counter strategies.

01:09:51:17 - 01:10:17:03
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Yeah. Thank you for those interesting questions. To take them in order in terms of the alternative vision, it it was a really maximalist vision that the that this on paper had it was of of free movement as a human right, as an ability to come and go and a kind of a central personal liberty derived not from citizenship in any one particular European country, but from the, you know, condition of being human.

01:10:17:03 - 01:10:43:01
Isaac Stanley-Becker
And there were appeals to, you know, principles from, France, from Francis revolutionary era, and other kinds of documents going forward, postwar commitments that were made to asylum for asylum and otherwise. But it was, it was a maximalist vision. It was not something that they were sitting down at the negotiating table and trying to say, well, what if we just tweaked that one part of the Schengen Agreement to say this instead?

01:10:43:03 - 01:11:22:04
Isaac Stanley-Becker
But it was a it was a rejection of free movement as, as a guarantee only for European citizens and a much broader, more universal vision. You know, the the rise of right wing populism. I think it's, you know, I think that Schengen has been a really useful bent noir for far right parties. There is a moment just at the end of the book where there's, a National Front kind of stunt in Schengen where, one of the leaders of the party goes and lays a wreath at in Schengen to to kind of announce and signal Schengen s death.

01:11:22:06 - 01:11:49:21
Isaac Stanley-Becker
I think in 2014, and then we also see the way in which the pressure from the far right has, has certainly caused a clampdown. I think it I think it's absolutely the case that, you know, Germany's actions would, would not, be as they are if it were not for the really severe threat posed by the AfD to the more mainstream parties and, and a desire to, you know, get tough on immigration.

01:11:49:21 - 01:12:22:21
Isaac Stanley-Becker
And that's true across Europe and, and it's true in the US in terms of the kind of rhetoric we saw from from both parties in the presidential election. And, you know, that takes me to your final question. Obviously, there are so many, details that, that separate the two instances legal, geographical or diplomatic and otherwise. But I think the broader structural factors, there really are a lot of parallels, both in terms of the the backlash against globalization.

01:12:22:23 - 01:13:04:24
Isaac Stanley-Becker
The the sense that, of people that they're being buffeted by these forces, by these strange international forces, that they don't understand the sense, whether real or imagined, that their communities or their countries have become unrecognizable and, and, and desire to do something about that. I think the, the reaction that we could see here in the US in a matter of, you know, weeks now could just be, you know, much more extreme than what's on the table in Europe, but possibly a harbinger of what's to come there, too.

01:13:05:01 - 01:13:13:03
Eric Arnesen
Thank you. Katrin Schultz, unmute. Pose a question.

01:13:13:05 - 01:13:15:04
[Audience question]
My unmuted. Am I on the board?

01:13:15:06 - 01:13:16:09
Eric Arnesen
You are indeed.

01:13:16:10 - 01:13:53:17
[Audience question]
Right. So my question. I missed the first few minutes of your presentation, so apologies if you've already talked about this, but I'm wondering if you could say something about the extent to which, if at all, you see any influence of thinking about the experience of the Second World War and refugees from the Holocaust. In, you know, I realize, you know, decades later in this Schengen agreement, I'm thinking in particular about this idea that you have you can't cross from one if you're coming from the outside, you, the first place you you enter must be the place to stay.

01:13:53:19 - 01:14:21:02
[Audience question]
And, you know, the issuing of temporary trans transitory visas during World War Two was was ubiquitous. Right. And the idea was you can't stay anywhere. You have to keep moving. And this seems to be the opposite of that. So I wonder if you could just reflect a little bit on whether you see any influence in the crafting of the Schengen Agreement of these old issues from the Second World War?

01:14:21:04 - 01:14:44:22
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean, I my, my sense is that it really operated at the level of rhetoric. But your question and your point about it being the opposite of the way these temporary visas worked in terms of you stay here, but you can't go versus this visa saying for a limited period of time you're in. And now you can move as the citizens of these countries do being different.

01:14:44:22 - 01:15:18:21
Isaac Stanley-Becker
So that's that's very interesting. And I would I would need to think more or even, you know, conduct further research about the way that, that that very concept of visas. Arose as a reaction to the way some of this operated during the war and a sense of a desire to move beyond that. You know, my what the research, what came out of the research was largely, again, that that the influence of the war and kind of memories and, and and legacies of the war largely operated at the level of rhetoric.

01:15:18:21 - 01:15:39:24
Isaac Stanley-Becker
So even though this was in the 80s and, you know, a number of decades after the immediate postwar experience, there was this kind of sense in the background that what we're trying to do is unite these countries, move on from a long history of bloodshed and hatred and, you know, come together in terms of, you know, as a sort of civic principle.

01:15:39:24 - 01:16:08:13
Isaac Stanley-Becker
One European people unite, put war, put war, behind us, and, and make that impossible. And that was certainly, a principle of the early federal visions for Europe, you know, the United States of Europe and other and other more sweeping ideas that you, that you, you know, make war impossible in this way. Then the other, you know, interesting moment that legacies of the war come up and of the Holocaust come up is in the ratification debates.

01:16:08:13 - 01:16:52:01
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Because so this is all done largely secretly and largely among, you know, technocrats at the inter-governmental level. But then starting in 1991, first in France, it goes to the national parliaments for ratification. And all of a sudden there's this spirited public debate, about Schengen and about what it means and about its benefits and drawbacks. And, you know, especially in France and Germany, where the debates are spirited, the the war is, is, is such an important touchstone, for, for both sides really because the, the supporters of Schengen argue again that this, you know, comes out of a desire to make amends, to, join hands as nations to banish nationalism.

01:16:52:03 - 01:17:24:22
Isaac Stanley-Becker
But then also critics of the agreement find reasons, find their own reasons to to use the war and use the Holocaust for their purposes, either, arguing that it's a, you know, a denial of, say, French sovereignty that, so hard fought going back to, you know, centuries ago, but also hard fought, in, you know, in the Second World War and then, you know, in Germany in argument, in arguments, saying that the asylum provisions are too restrictive and that they prevent, you know, proper responsibility for refugees.

01:17:24:24 - 01:17:39:19
Isaac Stanley-Becker
There are references, you know, to Germany's obligations that arise from the Holocaust. And, and, and, you know, those are those are quite profound and, and interesting debates that happened in the early 90s.

01:17:39:21 - 01:17:45:22
Eric Arnesen
Thanks. And, Dayton, please unmute.

01:17:45:24 - 01:17:46:19
[Audience question]
Hello.

01:17:46:21 - 01:17:48:16
[Audience question]
Isaac.

01:17:48:18 - 01:18:20:23
[Audience question]
Maddie, congratulations on your thesis. This comes to you from Oxford, and it's very nice to see that you've got the book out as well. Could I ask I missed a few minutes of your, presentation, but I wonder if I could ask you about Romania and Bulgaria, because it's not much talked about, but they're very late membership and the difficult debates around it seem to me to have left something of a negative image about the EU for its neighboring countries.

01:18:21:00 - 01:18:42:01
[Audience question]
And I wonder if you feel that the way in which Bulgaria and Romania were treated has, in a sense, undermined the basis of principles of trust within the EU, and that it's very unlikely that Schengen is likely to be applied to any new member states in the future.

01:18:42:03 - 01:18:42:18
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Well.

01:18:42:20 - 01:18:47:22
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Gosh, I wonder if maybe you would be better positioned to enlighten us on some of this. See.

01:18:47:24 - 01:18:53:14
[Audience question]
That's that's a very clever journalist answer, Isaac. No, I'd like to hear it from you.

01:18:53:16 - 01:18:54:10
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Well.

01:18:54:12 - 01:18:54:19
Isaac Stanley-Becker
You know.

01:18:54:19 - 01:18:55:03
[Audience question]
We're all.

01:18:55:03 - 01:18:57:00
[Audience question]
Worried about trust in the EU.

01:18:57:00 - 01:18:58:24
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Obviously, but.

01:18:59:01 - 01:19:00:04
[Audience question]
So for outside.

01:19:00:06 - 01:19:28:14
Isaac Stanley-Becker
You know, I must say, I the more recent enlargements I have followed as a news consumer and, person interested in Schengen, but the, the book, you know, the book sort of, doesn't go up into the, the this century largely other than a bit in the epilog. And so even the 2004 enlargement in Eastern Europe, that then takes several years for those countries to enter.

01:19:28:14 - 01:19:48:13
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Schengen is not a it's not a focal point of the book, which is really about origins. So it really focuses on the 80s and the 90s and then goes back some, you know, really far in the past to trace the origins of this. So, so, so I really, you know, I am no authority on the internal debates with Romania and Bulgaria and how they were treated.

01:19:48:15 - 01:20:11:04
Isaac Stanley-Becker
I'm sorry to say, other than I, you know, I would note just the irony of the fact that just in just in recent days, they were admitted and already there are temporary reintroduction of controls, reintroduction of controls at these borders. But in terms of the back and forth and the debates, are just kind of beyond the scope of the history that I was that I was addressing here.

01:20:11:04 - 01:20:20:19
Isaac Stanley-Becker
But but if there are particular points that that you think have undermined trust, I mean, I would I would be fascinated to hear more about what those are.

01:20:20:24 - 01:20:47:06
[Audience question]
Well, I, I was only really thinking that, you know, we're talking and I think it's a, it's a pipe dream at the moment about Ukraine's entry, for example, at some decade in the future. But it seems to me that Schengen may have had its day, that it's very much of a, a treaty that, as you explained so brilliantly, you run the core of France and Germany and the British didn't really join in.

01:20:47:08 - 01:21:08:23
[Audience question]
And that may be when and if the European Union enlarges Schengen will be, a no go area that it really won't be feasible and that populations won't, won't accept it. And we've talked a little bit about populism already. It's a very big concern on on this side of the Atlantic.

01:21:09:00 - 01:21:42:00
Isaac Stanley-Becker
I think it's possible though. I also think there are economic constraints and economic imperatives that might make it difficult for countries that stay within the EU to be outside of Schengen, especially in cases like Bulgaria and Romania, where their neighbors are members. So just purely for reasons of, you know, really humdrum things like, you know, customs checks and standards for certain goods and, you know, livestock and veterinary, veterinary and principals, these all these kind of mundanity that matter.

01:21:42:00 - 01:22:11:21
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Once you have established that within a certain system, there is a kind of, green light for movement. You know, it might be difficult to be outside of that system once you're within the EU, because there's a desire to to take advantage of its benefits. But, but, you know, that's I think where we go back to the death by a thousand cuts concept is what does it mean to be within Schengen, but have all these exemptions or temporary restrictions at the borders?

01:22:11:23 - 01:22:33:22
[Audience question]
Well, I mean, that's very perceptive because we in Britain have discovered to our enormous disadvantages that those seemingly technical arrangements, relating to the single market, really do, clobber the economy. So you may be right, but I think there's a big dilemma there, a political one against an economic one.

01:22:33:24 - 01:22:35:18
[Audience question]
But thank you very much.

01:22:35:20 - 01:22:39:11
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Thank you, thank you.

01:22:39:13 - 01:23:19:22
Eric Arnesen
I'd like to get a question in of my own here, perhaps two. And I want you to talk about the relationship between the negotiations and the treaty on Schengen and enhanced border security to block the entrance of refugees, migrants, what have you. And the extent to which Schengen is the force that contributes to the modernization of the security apparatus, which any number of your people speak to, you know, making that connection.

01:23:19:24 - 01:23:52:24
Eric Arnesen
But I am wondering it, and this asks you to kind of speculate that absent the Schengen Agreement, if this modernization wouldn't have taken place anyway, given the levels of migration that was increasingly undesired. You have a description of Interpol. For example, in the early 1980s that I just thought was incredible. Interpol's inadequacies, you said, became increasingly apparent to European nations that that that some of the problems were technical.

01:23:53:01 - 01:24:38:11
Eric Arnesen
Interpol was still relying on Morse code as the basis of an expansive radio network. When the negotiations began behind the transmission of urban police, policing priorities set operators punching telegraph keys by hand. Upgrades were too costly, straining the budget. Interpol, one of your, police officials says was a post office, in the early 1980s. So clearly, this is a system, an operation that is technologically unsophisticated, and not particularly capable of handling, the level of immigration that certain political groups wanted it to handle.

01:24:38:13 - 01:24:58:10
Eric Arnesen
So would various countries have upgraded their security apparatus and increased the surveillance anyway? Absent the Schengen negotiations, just given the numbers, given the threat of terrorism, and the other problems that you mentioned.

01:24:58:12 - 01:25:26:24
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Well, anyone familiar with the European bureaucracy might think that they might still be operating according to Morse code, if not for this kind of spur to do things differently? No. I think the point is well-taken. There were certainly many different incentives, to, to modernize and also just to modernize and to fortify, I should say. But I think that Schengen played a number of, of important roles in moving this along.

01:25:26:24 - 01:25:49:24
Isaac Stanley-Becker
And I would identify a couple, you know, first of all, just it was a requirement. So to relax internal controls, to realize this agreement there had to be certain standards met in terms of the fortification of external barriers. And, you know, people stationed there and various technology and the amount of money spent, on these systems.

01:25:50:01 - 01:26:21:09
Isaac Stanley-Becker
So, so that's that's an important one then I think also, as Emily mentioned in her remarks, it it was a, you know, an excuse is maybe not the right word or pretense, but in anticipation of this, national governments took it upon themselves and used it as a justification to say internal borders are being relaxed. We really need to get our act in gear in terms of or get our act in order, in terms of how we police our borders, you know, especially in France, this this was true.

01:26:21:09 - 01:26:46:19
Isaac Stanley-Becker
And and again, this comes in the context of the rising electoral threat from the National Front. You know, 1986 the National Front comes to power. And, you know, in a French town for the first time, they enter the European Parliament, around around that same year. And so the end of the 80s, the beginning of the 90s, there is this strong feeling that, you know, centrist parties need to get tough on immigration.

01:26:47:00 - 01:27:13:06
Isaac Stanley-Becker
And that's in large part, in anticipation of removing their internal border barriers. So I think there's a, there's a compliance issue that it was actually a requirement of Schengen. And then there's also just, you know, I don't know what the exact right word would be, but but, the kind of justification or, almost like a, you know, a pretense to, to tighten things up.

01:27:13:08 - 01:27:40:15
Eric Arnesen
It's a final question. And if I, if I may, and this has to do with the song Peppa and the, figures that you center in the book, as articulating, the goals, the visions, the critique, of, of this movement and there seem to be and you will correct me here if I'm wrong, you know, two different strains, sort of in defense of, migrant movement.

01:27:40:17 - 01:28:20:00
Eric Arnesen
One is a human rights strain. No one is illegal. That kind of harkens back to a particular, set of thought and doctrine. And the other is a more left wing critique. And so one of your figures, say, you note, that she, study left to study in West Germany. She read Sarte, Lenin, Lumumba, Malcolm X and Mao, and then she precedes to become a spokesperson, for, this, movement, highlighting, the colonial, post-colonial, neocolonial, dimension there.

01:28:20:02 - 01:28:50:13
Eric Arnesen
So am I right? And seeing these two strains at work here, and fast forwarding to the current moment, does the latter have much currency? Given the right wing populism that's seems to be so strong in so many places. Or and are either of these critiques still persuasive politically, or relevant politically?

01:28:50:15 - 01:29:28:09
Isaac Stanley-Becker
Well, I'm not exactly sure what you mean about the difference between them. I mean, I think there were different strands and different arguments. Whether it was Cece's argument about a kind of universal human right to move or, you know, about our argument about citizenship, I think they're they're they're they're they're different strands of a kind of common critique of exclusion, of a rigid definition of citizenship, of kind of state, policing power and, you know, I think Malabar in particular articulated this.

01:29:28:11 - 01:29:59:17
Isaac Stanley-Becker
He wrote this, essay called What We Owe This on Paper and arguing that France had these debts to this on paper and that they had they had sort of recreated a different meaning of citizenship in, in, in light of their demands about their ability to occupy public space, to protest the wrongs, immigration restrictions, and, that these offer kind of new prospects for social transformation and, solidarity on a transnational level, whether they have purchase.

01:29:59:17 - 01:30:27:03
Isaac Stanley-Becker
I mean, I think that you're right that the political, trends are moving certainly in the opposite direction. And, you know, in the US, a majority of of voters supported, you know, a candidate who wants mass immigration round ups, which is hardly a vision of kind of protest against state policing power or the ability of immigrants to to make demands to offer different conceptions of citizenship.

01:30:27:03 - 01:30:56:10
Isaac Stanley-Becker
So I think these ideas are certainly in severe, severe trial and under under serious threat. But yeah. So I think that's the kind of clearest way I can say it is that. No, I think I think we're in a moment of reaction against these ideas. I think that, I think that, governments both here and in Europe, we'll see a popular mandate to move in exactly the opposite direction.

01:30:56:10 - 01:31:08:21
Isaac Stanley-Becker
I'm curious what Emily thinks, if she has any as any view of the way in which subtly these conceptions are still operative or still have purchase.

01:31:08:23 - 01:31:47:05
Emily Marker
Yeah. I mean, I, I, I agree with you. I mean, we're definitely in a moment of reaction and, and policymakers are inclined to go a certain way and think they have public opinion on their side. I mean, I, I do think that there has also been like a widening awareness of, you know, colonial history, you know, some sense of, sort of intergenerational solidarity and, and accountability for past wrongs among younger, younger, politically activated folks.

01:31:47:07 - 01:32:30:11
Emily Marker
And, and I do see, you know, sort of networks of activists of color across the continent moving in those, veins, like beyond the undocumented. Right. You know, you just have a sort of a lively or transnational space of activism now in Europe, on the left, and on the right, of course. But, I mean, I don't know, I think that, you know, after the fact in my own book, which is like looking at mainstream sort of politics for European integration and, and late during the late colonial era, I really didn't look at which ultimately argues that European integration added another level of racist exclusion.

01:32:30:13 - 01:33:00:13
Emily Marker
In postwar Europe, I wanted to look at mainstream figures because it felt like that's where, you know, we really needed to understand structural forms of exclusion. And I didn't look at the far right in the 40s or 50s. And I regret that now because clearly, clearly, they still matter. But at the same time, I feel like these things were baked into the European mainstream in the postwar era, and that's why they were able to be so reactivated so easily.

01:33:00:15 - 01:33:22:20
Emily Marker
In these particular crisis conjuncture, so, so, yeah, I think we have our work cut out for us if we believe in the values of, freedom of mobility as a human right or, any kind of, legitimate claim on belonging in Europe for these populations that are coming in droves.

01:33:22:22 - 01:33:43:07
Eric Arnesen
Thank you. I'm afraid we have to draw this to a close. There's a lot more we could talk about. The book comes out tomorrow. For those interested in reading further. And there's a lot more in it. So with that, I want to say thank you to Isaac. Thank you to Emily and Christian. Christian, back to you for final words.

01:33:43:09 - 01:34:05:00
Christian Ostermann
Right. My thanks as well to Isaac and Ellie and of course, you, Eric. Just a reminder, please join us on January 27th for the first and last king of Haiti. The rise and fall of Henri Christophe. With Mali in doubt. We hope to see you then. Until then, stay safe. Take care. And thanks all for joining us.

01:34:05:02 - 01:34:06:10
Christian Ostermann
Good night.

01:34:06:12 - 01:34:07:14
Isaac Stanley-Becker
I thank you, everyone.

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