The promise of free movement in the Schengen area - the decision of the Court of Justice in Landespolizeidirektion Steiermark (NW)

In Landespolizeidirektion Steiermark , the Court of Justice of the European Union (the Court) held that the prolonged reinstatement of border controls violated the provisions of the Schengen Borders Code. The case could potentially have become one of the grand cases of EU constitutional law, given, on the one hand, the importance of the absence of internal border controls for the free movement of EU citizens, and, on the other hand, the national security prerogatives invoked by the Member States. The reason that it did not is because the Court relies first and foremost on an interpretation of secondary law. Nonetheless, by qualifying internal border controls as restrictions to free movement, which must be interpretated narrowly, the judgment signals a first rapprochement between the internal market and citizenship’s provision on free movement and the borderless AFSJ. It also underlines the importance of the Commission’s role in safeguarding the area of free movement.