Compendium of best practices in Schengen evaluation 2026

The European Commission published the Compendium of best practices accompanying the 2026 State of Schengen Report.

• Main announcement: The Commission has issued the fifth-edition Compendium of best practices (accompanying the 2026 State of Schengen Report) to collect and share Member States’ innovative measures and operational solutions identified through the Schengen Evaluation and Monitoring Mechanism; new measures from 2025 evaluations are highlighted in bold.
• Background and concrete examples: The document is explanatory (non-binding) and consolidates practices across national Schengen governance, external border management, large-scale IT systems and SIRENE workflows—notable examples include Romania’s georedundant secondary data center in Brașov financed by European funds (2025) and Zurich’s SMAZH detainee laptop scheme (1 CHF per day, Switzerland, 2025); it also details SIEM deployment, automated alert workflows, and joint training/liaison arrangements with implementation years where provided.