Abstrakt
The chapter is concerned with perceptions of the free cross-border movement of people that is regulated by the Schengen Agreement regime. The Agreement developed gradually in the multi-speed institutional context of the EU.
The Schengen process led since mid-1980s to stepwise enlargement of the Schengen area. Considerable complexities appear regarding different perceptions of the re-rescaling processes in articulations of public opinion concerned with the spatiality shifts between the circumstances at the level of individual member countries and the level of issues of the EU-wide functioning of the Schengen Agreement regimes.
Outcomes of multivariate statistical analysis of public opinion across twenty-seven EU countries concerning the free cross-border movement of people and the control of external EU frontier specified two components of perceptions: positive valuation and practical use and enabled to distinguish four major types of perceptions in the EU27: positive perception, peripheral perception, practical perception and negative perception. Correlation analysis indicated perception and public opinion cleavages between the old member countries and the new member countries of the enlarged EU.