The Czech Republic and the 2022 and 2023 Reintroduction of Border Controls: Framing Secondary Movements as a Threat to National Security in the Regional Context

Abstract

Since 2015, Western and Central European member states along the Balkan route haverepeatedly responded to the increased number of arriving migrants by reintroducing internal bordercontrols. They did so deliberately and at the cost of sacrificing one of the major achievements of theEuropean integration process: the principle of free movement and the area without internal fron-tiers. The presented Article focuses on legal assessment of these responses. Using the example ofthe Czech reintroduction of border controls on the land border with Slovakia in 2022/23 and2023/24, we demonstrate how legal responses of member states may intertwine with domestic pol-itics and how states take a somewhat hesitant approach to law in the face of migratory pressure.The Czech example also illustrates how states, despite their international and EU obligations, adoptspecific measures without properly considering adequate and more proportionate alternatives.