Reimposing passport checks in the Schengen area creates new political lines in our minds \u2013 and that poses its own danger<\/p>\n
With so many economic and political challenges looming, the EU nevertheless began 2025 with a little bit of its old magic and a reminder that it\u2019s here to do far more than simply react. At the stroke of midnight on 1 January, a dog crossed the border<\/a> between Romania and Hungary, and like all the people to follow it, nope, it didn\u2019t have to show ID. As of 2025, Romania and Bulgaria<\/a> are full members of the Schengen area \u2013 that counterintuitive dismantling of borders that refuses to be snuffed out in an age of rising nationalism.<\/p>\n The quote \u201cwe have made Europe, now we must make Europeans\u201d is often apocryphally attributed to Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of the European Union. Even if he never actually said it, the \u201cmaking\u201d of Europeans is tangible in two ways. Both have to do with movement. Erasmus<\/a> \u2013 the scheme that lent its name to a whole generation of students for whom it opened Europe\u2019s doors \u2013 and the Schengen agreement, which eliminated physical borders between most countries in the EU.<\/p>\n Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe<\/a> columnist<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reimposing passport checks in the Schengen area creates new political lines in our minds \u2013 and that poses its own danger With so many economic and political challenges looming, the EU nevertheless began 2025 with a little bit of its old magic and a reminder that it\u2019s here to do far more than simply react. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30038\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}