9 As coronavirus spreads, can the
EU afford to close its borders?
Raffaella Meninno and Guntram Wolff^1
Bruegel
Coronavirus crisis has triggered intense debate about border closings in the Schengen
area as a way to contain the spread of the epidemic. Austria stopped some trains from
Italy and as the virus spreads the open border policy will be further tested. Whether
or not such a measure makes sense from an epidemiological point of view is beyond
the expertise of the authors. The Schengen regulation in any case does allow travel
restrictions in case of a threat to public health (Article 2(21) an 6(1e) of Regulation
(EU) 2016/399). This chapter looks at some of the possible economic consequences of
border closings. Many workers rely on the Schengen agreement, which allows them to
cross the border without any ID controls. More than 1.9 million residents from Schengen
countries crossed the border to go to work in 2018. As can be seen in the chart below,
0.9% of the employed citizens living in Schengen countries work across the border. The
share of cross-border commuters is particularly high in Slovakia (5.5%), Luxembourg
(2.7%), Croatia, Estonia and Belgium.
The Schengen agreement’s relevance stretches beyond cross-border commuting to
work. In 2018, EU27 citizens made almost 320 million trips of one night and over to
other EU27 countries, more than 39 million (12%) of those were for business purposes.
1 This chapter first appeared as a blog on the Bruegel website.