There was a rather ironic constellation, when Switzerland joined the Schengen area in 2008, but Liechtenstein joined 6 month later. (There is no border or custo

There was a rather ironic constellation, when Switzerland joined the Schengen area in 2008, but Liechtenstein joined 6 month later. (There is no border or customes control between Switzerland and Liechtenstein). In theory it would have ment to put up full border checks between the two countries, since Liechtenstein would not have been part of the area and Schengen checks are pretty thorough. Cooler heads prevaled. Especially since Liechtenstein doesn't have an international airport and is completely enclosed by Schengen countries. So the status quo remained. One another interesting sidenote. Before 2008, when there were long queues at Zurich airport they sometimes just opened the floodgates and let people in un-checked. Mind you this being Switzerland I'm pretty sure that it was heavily observed and this didn't happen recklessly. However, since Schengen this is a no-go and each and every passenger entering or leaving the Schengen area must be checked (alas, it's probably the most efficient passport control I've ever experienced, except, possibly, Singapore).