Luxembourg - Slovenia did not inform the European Commission of the re-introduction of border checks on EU borders due to the Covid pandemic in the summer of 2020 and the spring of 2021 and the Commission did not check compliance with Schengen rules, the European Court of Auditors has found.

The court says in a special report on the right of free movement in the context of the Covid-19 crisis that EU countries submitted 150 official notifications of border checks within the EU between March 2020 and June 2021, with 135 of them relating exclusively to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Slovenia is among the countries that did not inform Brussels of the re-introduction of border checks. In the summer of 2020 and the spring of 2021, border police were checking quarantine and a negative Covid-19 test requirements without the Commission having been formally notified of this.

The country also failed to report to the Commission about the border checks or submit evidence that they were proportionate and necessary.

Slovenia is also one of the nine countries that did not send reports to the Commission within four weeks after the border checks were abolished.

Meanwhile, the Commission did not demanded of these countries that they send the missing official notifications of the border checks or the subsequent reports.

Given that free movement of persons is one of the four fundamental freedoms of the EU and has been at the heart of the European project since its inception, the Commission should have carefully verified whether all the restrictions imposed at the time of the pandemic were appropriate and justified, said Baudilio Tome Muguruza, member of the European Court of Auditors responsible for the audit.

Tome Muguruza expressed hope that the audit will contribute to the ongoing debate on the Schengen system.

The court has found that the Commission had problems checking the restrictions because of the existing legal framework. EU countries are responsible for border restrictions but the Commission must coordinate the efforts of different counties to mitigate the effects on travel within the EU.

The Commission did launch several initiatives to coordinate the measures affecting free movement of EU citizens, including the Re-open EU platform, which was introduced on 1 June 2020.

However, nine countries, including Slovenia, failed to provide updated information on this until July 2021.