Schengen’s Ambivalent History

During a radio broadcast commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the Schengen Agreement, Robert Goebbels, a former State Secretary at Luxembourg's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reflected on how he organised the Agreement's signing ceremony on 14 June 1985.The event took place in Schengen, a Luxembourgish village situated amid rolling vineyards along the banks of the Moselle River.Despite Schengen's symbolic significancebeing located at the tripoint where the borders of France, Germany, and Luxembourg convergethe village lacked a suitable venue for a formal multilateral signing ceremony.Consequently, Mr Goebbels opted to host the event aboard the riverboat Princesse Marie-Astrid.When questioned by a journalist about the absence of European leaders at the signing ceremony of such a significant treaty, Mr Goebbels explained: 'The truth is, when we launched the process, in the five concerned capitals nobody really believed in it.For this reason, all the foreign ministers delegated [the signing ceremony] to their number two.' 1 The Schengen Agreement reduced the formalities of borders checks between the five Schengen countries (Germany, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands) with immediate effect and envisaged the removal of border controls in the long term.Nonetheless, Mr Goebbels himself, who signed the