Ceuta Fallout Continues, With EU Members Furious at Spain
David Strom 5:00 PM | August 01, 2026
The Schengen Agreement is on life support, although I don't expect it to die in the near term. Call it hospice treatment.
The Schengen Agreement provides for the free flow of people throughout the EU and other member states. No passports or visas are required, which in theory is a very good thing. The fewer barriers to trade and travel, the more efficient the economy will be and theoretically the less tension between people of different countries.
Since the ultimate goal of the EU, sometimes stated, other times not, is the formation of a United States of Europe to create an economic and political powerhouse to match or exceed the United States' status as a colossus, the idea makes sense in theory, as long as you ignore the fact that European countries are far less similar to the states in the US.
Even here we have cultural differences and clashes, and some divergence in dialects, but overall the system works very well, although with the emergence of Blue states and Red states, you can see hints at the potential for an informal national divorce. Florida and Texas are rather different culturally than California and Massachusetts, but that is nothing compared to Poland, the UK, France, Spain, and Germany. All of those countries have been at war with each other in recent memory and have languages that diverge past the point of mutual unintelligibility.
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2026/08/01/ceuta-fallout-continues-n3817558#google_vignette
