Cross-border commuters and trips: the relevance of Schengen

Blog post

Cross-border commuters and trips: the relevance of Schengen

Almost 1.7 million Schengen residents were cross-border commuters in 2014.
These charts show data on commuting in the Schengen area and intra-EU tri

Publishing date: 03 December 2015
Authors: Guntram B. Wolff Nuria Boot

Many workers rely on the Schengen agreement that allows them to cross the border without any ID controls. Almost 1.7 million residents from Schengen countries crossed the border to go to work in 2014. As can be seen in the chart below, 0.93% of the employed citizens living in Schengen countries work across the border. The share of cross-border commuters is particularly high in Slovakia (5.7%), Estonia (3.5%), Hungary (2.4%) and Belgium (2.3%).

Source: Eurostat

Please note that these figures represent the share of a country's employed residents who commute out of the country to go to work.

The Schengen agreement’s relevance stretches beyond cross-border commuting to work. In 2013, EU-28 citizens made over 218 million trips of one night and over to other EU-28 countries, almost 25 million (11%) of those were for business purposes.

Source: Eurostat

Overall, the numbers show that many people benefit from the Schengen agreement – they would notice its abolition in their daily lives. What makes the debate on Schengen so relevant are not the direct macroeconomic implications of its possible abolition, it’s the visible and powerful symbol of European integration that Schengen represents and the potential further consequences in terms of labour mobility.

About the authors

Guntram B. Wolff

Guntram Wolff is a Senior fellow at Bruegel. He is also a Professor of Economics at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB).

From 2022-2024, he was the Director and CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) and from 2013-22 the director of Bruegel. Over his career, he has contributed to research on European political economy, climate policy, geoeconomics, macroeconomics and foreign affairs. His work was published in academic journals such as Nature, Science, Research Policy, Energy Policy, Climate Policy, Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of Banking and Finance. His co-authored book “The macroeconomics of decarbonization” is published in Cambridge University Press.

An experienced public adviser, he has been testifying twice a year since 2013 to the informal European finance ministers’ and central bank governors’ ECOFIN Council meeting on a large variety of topics. He also regularly testifies to the European Parliament, the Bundestag and speaks to corporate boards. In 2020, ranked him one of the 28 most influential “power players” in Europe. From 2012-16, he was a member of the French prime minister’s Conseil d’Analyse Economique. In 2018, then IMF managing director Christine Lagarde appointed him to the external advisory group on surveillance to review the Fund’s priorities. In 2021, he was appointed member and co-director to the G20 High level independent panel on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response under the co-chairs Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Lawrence H. Summers and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. From 2013-22, he was an advisor to the Mastercard Centre for Inclusive Growth. He is a member of the Bulgarian Council of Economic Analysis, the European Council on Foreign Affairs and advisory board of Elcano. He is also a fellow at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Guntram joined Bruegel from the European Commission, where he worked on the macroeconomics of the euro area and the reform of euro area governance. Prior to joining the Commission, he worked in the research department at the Bundesbank, which he joined after completing his PhD in economics at the University of Bonn. He also worked as an external adviser to the International Monetary Fund. He is fluent in German, English, and French. His work is regularly published and cited in leading media.
Nuria Boot

Nuria, a Dutch, Spanish and American citizen, worked as a Research Assistant in the area of Competition Policy. Before joining Bruegel, Nuria worked as a trainee on the Chief Economist Team at DG Competition, European Commission. At the CET she worked on the quantitative analysis of a merger case and on a state aid project.

She studied Econometrics and Economics, specializing in Industrial Organization, at the University of Amsterdam. In her master thesis she studied the profitability of a cartel in interbank rate mechanisms, such as Euribor and Libor. Her bachelor thesis was on entry deterrence and mergers after patent expiration.

Nuria’s research interests include competition policy, (empirical) industrial organization, regulation and innovation.

She is fluent in Dutch, Catalan, Spanish and English.