Islamic State could cause serious damage to Hungary

According to origo.hu, it would cause tremendous damage to Europe, if the Schengen area would fall apart due to the terrorist threat and the refugee crisis. Because of the long-term restoration of border controls, commerce would become more expensive and slower, tourism would decline, movement of labor would be more difficult. There is a scenario whereby the core countries of the Union would form a mini-Schengen and the periphery (including Hungary) would be disconnected. In the worst case, Schengen may fall completely apart and drag the single currency as well.

The dissolution of the Schengen area would cost billions of euros to whole Europe due to the decline of commerce, analyst Dane Davis thinks, who wrote a study on the economic impacts of the Schengen treaty in 2014.

The slowdown of the road transport would particularly affect the EU, since about half of the transports are taking place on the roads in the Union.

In relation to the gross domestic product (GDP), the biggest losers of the dissolution of Schengen would be the smaller Central European countries like Hungary and Slovakia, because a bigger part of their GDP is from trade within the EU.

By the reintroduction of border controls, labor mobility would reduce, which would cause difficulties not only for job seekers, but for companies looking for workers as well. In terms of international tourism, it would be beneficial if the Schengen rules remained unchanged, origo.hu wrote.

The effects of the disintegration of the Schengen area cannot be even estimated: since it has been established, there has never been an example of a country permanently reinstating border controls. So far, something like that occurred only temporarily: France suspended the treaty after the 2005 terrorist attacks, and Portugal and Germany did this when they hosted the football European Championship and World Cup.

According to origo.hu, there is also a chance that Schengen area would be two-speed. Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders admitted Austria, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands had begun negotiations on the possible establishment of a core-Schengen after the Paris attacks. German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere also admitted the negotations, but he said the political goal was to preserve the whole Schengen area.

Currently the only certainty is that the Union will tighten the protection of external borders and the control of people entering on the borders. According to EU officials, physical and administrative tools are needed which are not available currently. The construction of those would take months or years.

The Hungarian Interior Ministry said they could cope with the full suspension of the Schengen treaty.

based on the article of origo.hu
translated by BA

Photo: Attila Nemeth/Flickr
Copy editor: bm

Source: http://www.origo.hu