The Italo-French Row over Schengen, Critical Junctures, and the Future of Europe's Border Regime

The row between the French and Italian governments over the handling of migratory flows out of North Africa in the wake of the "jasmine revolutions" has raised some serious doubts about the future of Schengen, the policy regime that guarantees the free movement of people across Europe. Does this row really represent, as some commentators have suggested, the beginning of the end for one of the key pillars of European integration? In this paper I contend that the regime, despite facing a critical juncture in its three decade-long history, is not doomed. On the contrary, in the long term it might emerge reinforced from its current predicament. To support this argument, the paper reconstructs the evolution of Schengen's past "crises," showing how their content, dynamics and key protagonists bear striking similarities with the recent Franco-Italian row and its political fallout. From an institutional perspective, these crises represent cyclical adjustment mechanisms that have helped the regime withstand new challenges and consolidate its presence in Europe, a process I refer to as "punctuated gradualism." The correspondences with past events suggest that the latest crisis is leading Schengen towards a similar institutional path.