Schengen space . . now 25

[ART]

Of course the Schengen area has not done the stuff alone, it's the countries that have done it.
Just like guns don't kill people, people do. ..but I think the gun helps, doesn't it? (an Eddie Izzard quote)
And so also the Schengen area has dramatically helped the "you were born in a wrong place. You shall suffer since we.. err.. are better than you. Because of our origins and genes. Everyone's equal and we are even more equal than you are" attitude, albeit it is not the actual reason behind that happening.

I don't understand this to see "racism" in Schengen... it's really absurd.
Schengen is a border, simply, but a border EU - rest of world instead that a series of borders between the states of EU and with the rest of the world. It's born thinking to the internal situation of the Europe, not a romantic vision of the world. If we consider racism in a generalized manner the concept of state border the speech goes very more behind in the time: the borders aren't born with Schengen.

[helloggs]

And the eliminated obstacles don't count?

I was talking about the downside, wasn't I? Of course there are advantages, mainly of economic nature - that's why Schengen is enlarged as quickly as possible. It's all about having more trucks passing the border in less time, that Maija Meikäläinen can easily travel down to Portugal to visit Manuel Dos Santos without showing passport is merely a nice side effect.

And I don't have a "romatic vision" of the whole world travel around the globe without passports - I was just pointing out that a Schengen border is different from a normal border, which causes seperation of some countries who have a lot more in common (except for the fact that one country is EU member and the other won't be for a long time) than the EU member state with the majoroity of the EU.

And the reason for writing this was that Schengen was hyped in this thread like the best thing since sliced bread - I would just like people to see stuff also from a different perspective.

[starcapitan]

The article : NYtimes
A serie of images :LaRepubblica

I changed the title of the topic
ciao,andre

[tabbs]

It's all about having more trucks passing the border in less time, that Maija Meikäläinen can easily travel down to Portugal to visit Manuel Dos Santos without showing passport is merely a nice side effect.

If what you write was true, doing away with the customs checks would certainly suffice. Well, it's the customs and passport checks that are gone. And for some odd reason I have not seen that many trucks in the aircraft that I have used within Schengenland.

From my personal POV it does not matter that much whether I can now travel to Malta with or without ID checks. It does however matter a lot for ("non-truck") frequent travelers/commuters between, say, Aachen and Liège or Mönchengladbach and Roermond. But as we learned from this thread, the hidden agenda behind Schengen is all about racist and elitist attitudes towards people in countries outside the EU ...

Christian

[helloggs]

Trucks are usually operated by people that hold passports as well, you know. Having air traffic (or personal travel in general) excempted from Schengen certainly makes no sense, BUT the fact that personal travellers benefit from Schengen because the regime is not limited to commercial traffic does not mean that the main intention when introducing the border free Europe wasn't having economical benefits. Besides, to allow people to commute over a border into another European country to work there is also an economic benefit as it allows companies to pick their employee of choice from a much bigger pool, thus increasing it's productivity (provided they really found the right person - or they can decrease labor costs that way which has the same effect in the end) Everything is a market, the bigger the market, the better. It's exactly the same with the Euro, it wasn't introduced to spare travellers the visits to exchange offices abroad, still they benefit.
Nothing bad about it at all, a strong and competable European economy is very desirable of course, imho EU mostly does best when focussing on economic issues, at least much better than when it comes to political integration, I am sceptical that this will ever work out. Europeans are too nationalistic to achieve this in the near future. (but that's another topic)

And I don't understand your aggressive undertone at all. It's fun to discuss this shit, but rather by exchanging arguments than sarcastic statements.

[Fjon]

I must admit I don't know all that much about the Schengen treaty, coming from a country outside of it.
So basically the idea is an open land border, right? You can travel from one country to another without border control, either by road, rail or water?
I presume the same thing doesn't apply to air travel, where you still need to show a passport or similar?
So I was wondering - what's the benefit for an island country? How does Iceland benefit from it - does it just mean they can fly to Berlin using a Driving License instead of passport?

The reason Ireland can't/ hasn't joined is because we have a "free travel" agreement with the UK, our only land border. The UK do not want to join Schengen as they don't want to give up their border controls, and as a result we can't join - it would mean border controls between Ireland and the UK.
In 2009 the free travel agreement will be abolished, and I wonder will Ireland consider joining Schengen then.

[tabbs]

Yes, the comment about the best thing since sliced bread was a little sarcastic indeed. Oops, but it wasn't me who wrote that ... (innocent looking face here)

And sure, of course the EU is primarily an economic union, a common market. Anything beyond that - well, the EU cannot not be much more than what the 27 national governments want it to be. (Don't think this particularism in many member states is limited to the "near" future; it gets worse IMO, but that is indeed OT here.) My point about the trucks, however, was that long truck lines/jams along at a border can be dealt with by abolishing those enormously time consuming customs checks. From a truck driver's POV, doing away with ID checks is a nice extra, but that is not what takes most of their time. Same thing with the euro. If it had been launched only in order to make things easier for big businesses, introducing the common cash would by and large have been superfluous ...

Christian

[tabbs]

So basically the idea is an open land border, right? You can travel from one country to another without border control, either by road, rail or water?
I presume the same thing doesn't apply to air travel, where you still need to show a passport or similar?

It also applies to air travel. However, even for flights within a country you will usually at some point be asked to provide a photo ID, if only to prove that you are you. (Important especially with e-tickets.) Another thing is that, no matter which means of transportation you use, you need to have a passport or ID card with you if you travel from one Schengen country to another one.

In this particular case (of the member states that did away with the internal border checks last night) there is another issue: If you fly from "Old Schengenland" to any of these countries, or the other way round, the airport checks will be continued until the end of March.

And as you may know, Schengen is not only about "borderless" travel. It also includes the Schengen Information System and SIS-II. The UK and Ireland participate in SIS to a limited extent as far as I know.

Christian

[ART]

I was talking about the downside, wasn't I? Of course there are advantages, mainly of economic nature - that's why Schengen is enlarged as quickly as possible. It's all about having more trucks passing the border in less time, that Maija Meikäläinen can easily travel down to Portugal to visit Manuel Dos Santos without showing passport is merely a nice side effect.

But then why not to abolish the controls between Canada and USA or Russia and China? Perhaps because the existence of controls to the borders isn't only "economic nature"?

And I don't have a "romatic vision" of the whole world travel around the globe without passports - I was just pointing out that a Schengen border is different from a normal border, which causes seperation of some countries who have a lot more in common (except for the fact that one country is EU member and the other won't be for a long time) than the EU member state with the majoroity of the EU.

When we talk about EU the landslide of the borders has simply economic meaning, while when we talk about the external borders it becomes a tragic separation of countries "who have a lot more in common" that with the rest of Europe( your personal opinion).
But isn't same one? Why doesn't complain that the trucks will have more difficulty to pass today between Ucraina and Polonia?

[tabbs]

And one more Schengen country ... Switzerland.

Passport controls at the Swiss borders (AT, DE, FR, IT) will come to an end in two weeks, on 12 December. ID checks at airports will be done until 28 March next year.

Side note: Customs checks will be continued. (So much for the theory of Schengen being "about having more trucks passing the border in less time".) Well, Switzerland is not part of the EU internal market, so transports of goods are still subject to checks.

Oddly enough, Liechtenstein is now the only country in that region which is not part of the Schengen area. The principality may join in a year or so; don't expect border fences being built around LI by mid-December though. Austria and Switzerland plan a continued "security analysis", Liechtenstein will unilaterally accept Schengen visa ...

Christian

[ART]

In the practical facts nothing is changed, because the controls of documents already were not-systematc from years: only change is the join without valid reason in Schegen of a not-EU country. This can have negative repercussions, because it can provide to the opponents of the European liberty of circulation pretenses in order to attack Schengen.

[tabbs]

It was a problem to some extent for commuters, say, between Basel (CH) and Weil (DE). The border checks have actually been a little tighter in recent times because Switzerland was not part of the Schengen area.

As for non-EU countries being in "Schengenland", I do not see that as a problem per se. The Schengen Agreement started as a project outside the EU, and while it is now part of the acquis communautaire, there are several countries which are EU members but do not participate in "Schengen" (e.g. Ireland and Romania). On the other hand, we already have countries which participate in the Schengen Agreement but are not EU members (e.g. Iceland and Norway). A little complicated, but EUrope has never been simple.

Christian

[ART]

Your considerations make sense but, to prescind from the Swiss specific case, it's better to avoid not indispensable increases of Schengen members, because the natural difficulties in the control of the external borders, and above the passages of clandestine immigrants through the inner borders, provide to the anti-europeans many pretenses in order to try to contrast Schengen. This my worry could appear exaggerated but it derives from a concrete facts: for example, from time to time in Italy arrives news of attempts, from the minister of Italian domestic affairs, of pressures towards the EU in order to obtain "reforms" of the Treaty of Schengen that in reality (knowing the personage in issue) they're attempts not too much hidden to arrive to a reintroduction in the facts of the controls for the inner borders.