8 ms·

> There is no border control due to the Schengen Agreement, therefore daily life is not really impacted. That's the most interesting part to me. I cross the bo

• mikeash 8y ago
  It’s interesting and sad to contrast it with the India-Bangladesh enclaves, where there were great hardships due the lack of such international cooperation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India–Bangladesh_enclaves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India–Bangladesh_enclaves
  • masklinn 8y ago
    TBF, the "desenclaving" is relatively recent if it was effected by the Schengen agreement given these enclaves were created back in 1921. It would be interesting to know how they were handled/managed in the meantime, did Belgium have the entire railway fenced off? I expect not, most land borders are not that hard, the east/west border was more the exception than the rule.
• FigBug 8y ago
  This is what I was expecting when I drove between Switzerland-Italy in 2016. Except I was stopped, told to park, had my passport examined with with a loupe, and then was sent on my way. Are the borders back to normal now?
  • toyg 8y ago
    Probably not. The Italian Northern border has been repeatedly “closed to Schengen” by neighbours because of the migration crisis. France, Switzerland and Austria basically keep suspending the treaty unilaterally whenever they feel like, as well as carrying out further abuses (like French Police illegally crossing the border and unloading migrants in a forest before driving back).
    • mandelken 8y ago
      They are not suspending the Schengen treaty, obviously. The treaty explicitly allows for temporary border controls. Crossing the border to offload migrants on the other hand is obviously illegal.
      • toyg 8y ago
        How temporary is "temporary"? The border near Ventimiglia has been basically extra-Schengen for more than 3 years. I believe the Austrian border is not that different, just slightly less popular.
    • y4mi 8y ago
      > like French Police illegally crossing the border and unloading migrants in a forest before driving back Please tell me you have a source for that. / Edit It seems to have been a singular occurrence where two migrants were deported unofficially by French officers. Your phrasing made it sound like a regular occurrence of at least tens of migrants... But it is technically correct, I guess.
      • coliveira 8y ago
        I don't know anything about this situation, but if the police was caught doing this once I have a strong guess that it is not so uncommon.
      • toyg 8y ago
        There is a single video but reports of multiple separate occasions in which it was done. The video was taken after the story had already broken on newspapers because the current Italian government officially raised it with France. Chances are that it had already happened several times, these things are usually kept quiet and dealt with diplomatically if they are occasional - unless one side is unresponsive and the abuse is repeated, which is probably what happened here. TBH it's not even the most high-profile case, the stuff at Ventimiglia (where France simply blocks most migrants) is pretty egregious too. The Brits do it as well in Calais, but at least they had the honesty of not signing the Schengen treaty to begin with.
  • lucideer 8y ago
    A few countries have started to introduce this recently due to paranoia around Syrian refugees. It's extremely controversial, as it basically nullifies Schengen, but countries are apparently allowed by the agreement to put these spot checks in place (provided some political procedures) up to 20 out of every 60 days.
    • jamiegreen 8y ago
      Is it paranoia, or just a sensible way for states to implement some semblance of control over their own border when a EU wide strategy seems out of reach?
      • johannes1234321 8y ago
        It is paranoia or rather political acting, since right next to the "controlled" borders there are smaller streets and paths without controlled border and there are multiple reports about those border officers not finding anything of relevance (from time to time they notice something like overloaded cars and those kind of offenses, but that's not a border protection issue, but regular police work)
      • lucideer 8y ago
        It's paranoia. In order to argue that it's sensible, you have to first demonstrate a disimprovement in affairs warranting a change in policy, and secondly show a causal link between "outsiders" that your border control is targeting and those disimprovements. Even if you could manage the former of those two (which I don't believe you could, though I might be mistaken), the latter is definitely not the case.
        • Symbiote 8y ago
          I don't have any numbers, but I twice saw refugees "caught" at Malmö Hyllie station; the first station in Sweden and the official customs point for people arriving by train from Denmark. I only go to Malmö every 2-3 months, so at least for a while it may have been reasonable, given the aim of discovering refugees before they settle illegally somewhere.
  • onetimemanytime 8y ago
    IIRC, they do random checks. 100 people don't get stopped, 1 does or whatever. Maybe random, maybe a hunch, maybe both.
  • zaarn 8y ago
    Random border checks are normal, even in Schengen, usually it's by Customs, sometimes it's highway/Autobahn police. Spotchecks are perfectly normal, though they've been elevated on some borders due to the refugee crisis (atleast in germany).
    • FigBug 8y ago
      If you live in the EU are you supposed to carry your passport whenever you move between countries?
      • zaarn 8y ago
        At least in Germany you have a legal duty to have a passport or ID card, if a police officer asks for one but you don't have it, you'll either be brought into the next police station (if you don't have a legal address) until it clears up or show up at your nearest police station within 24 hours or up to a week, depending on the situation. Though generally if you don't have it, you usually get an oral warning and have to, as mentioned, bring a valid document of identity to a police stations (sometimes not even that). Going directly to the station is very rare in my experience. Not having a document of identity at all is grounds for a fine of up to 3000€, though if you travel from outside the EU you'll have your travel passport anyway. Netherland and Portugal have a similar law. Austria has a similar law but only for non-austrian persons in Austria. When you cross borders, even in the EU, you should be prepared that you might get controlled/checked, it usually doesn't happen but it's good to be prepared.
        • t0mas88 8y ago
          Yes, Netherlands has this law, but the fine is around € 90 if you don't have it, not 3000.
          • zaarn 8y ago
            I mentioned similar law, not same, the 3000 are also only if you don't have any passport or ID card at all. Like, you couldn't possibly show one. Not having it heavily depends on the situation, there are some where you may end up being fined.
  • paglia_s 8y ago
    It could have been that you got caught in the "random" checks applied after terrorist attacks or during the migration crisis but Switzerland is a weird case in that they're part of the Schengen area but not of the custom union. So for example, while between France and Italy there is literally no border station the border between Switzerland and other countries look like a normal border since they have to check goods. People shouldn't be subject to border checks but it happens
  • isostatic 8y ago
    Switzerland’s be in schengen, but there’s still differences in customs - need to declare dutiable good etc.
  • prepend 8y ago
    That happened to me between Switzerland and Germany in 2011. The French didn’t do anything when I drove from Switzerland to France.
  • fyfy18 8y ago
    I crossed into Switzerland last year and people were randomly stopped and had their documents checked - it wasn't a border where you queue for hours, you just drive through and some people are flagged down. Technically at an EU level you don't need to have any ID to cross a Schengen border, but some countries have laws requiring visitors to carry ID at all times. (And of course you won't be let onboard a commercial flight without valid ID)
    • thecopy 8y ago
      I am flying a lot in Europe, and have not had to show ID on any commercial flight except one time (Nice-Zurich – although i think i went into the wrong queue.) Sometimes i have realized afterwards that i did not even bring any ID.
• OscarCunningham 8y ago
  People in the U.S. have forgotten the meaning of the word "state".
  • tormeh 8y ago
    People who think the US and the EU operate the same way should look up the country and the union, respectively. There are also lots of YouTube videos about it, although you should probably be careful about what channels you trust.
  • randallsquared 8y ago
    For the most part, the US "states" stopped being states in the political sense when the Articles were replaced by the Constitution, and deliberately so.
    • gshubert17 8y ago
      And even more so after the huge increase in federal power during and after the Civil War (1861-65). Before the Civil War, people often said "The United States are in the Western hemisphere". By the twentieth century it was more often that "The United States is ...". https://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/the-united-states-is-or-are/ https://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/the-united-sta...
    • anticensor 8y ago
      Which Articles? Non-US reader here.
      • OscarCunningham 8y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation
      • azernik 8y ago
        For more than a Wikipedia link: The War of American Independence was fought by use of voluntary contributions from the individual states, which were more or less sovereign. From around 1781, this arrangement functioned under a loose confederation with similar or lesser power to the modern EU; its constitution was called the Articles of Confederation. It took until 1788/9 for the current Constitution to be adopted, after the Articles proved unable to cope with: 1. Payment of wartime debt, since the states' contributions to the federal budget were entirely voluntary. 2. Security threats, such as the looming British, or an unpaid veterans' (see point 1) rebellion in Massachusetts. 3. Foreign policy obligations, as the confederation couldn't enforce the terms of the 1783 peace treaty on the states.
• ceejayoz 8y ago
  > It was literally an open fence with a sign welcoming you. I was once on the TGV from Paris to Switzerland and passport control consisted of the conductor coming into the car and asking if anyone wasn't allowed in Switzerland.
• ThinkingGuy 8y ago
  Schengen Agreement was only implemented relatively recently (80's/90's?). How were border controls near these enclaves/exclaves handled for all the years before that?
  • Scarblac 8y ago
    The BeNeLux is older than Schengen (september 1944, founded by the governments of Belgium/Netherlands/Luxembourg while in exile from their occupied countries!). It eliminated border controls between Belgium and the Netherlands. Before that, I don't know and can't find them at the moment. Before the 20th century border controls didn't really exist yet. In WW1 the situation was special because Belgium was under German occupation but the Netherlands were neutral, the Belgian enclaves were bits of free Belgium heavily used by the resistance. To prove their neutrality the Netherlands were forced to put a fence around it with strict controls.
• flurdy 8y ago
  I lived for awhile inside Schengen and enjoyed the near total frictionless border crossing, train, air travel etc. When I later moved back to the UK, I had a faint hope the UK would one day see sense and join Schengen as well, but I am pretty sure that boat has now sailed...
• rumcajz 8y ago
  Before WWI, it used to be like that everywhere.
• fishywang 8y ago
  When I was visiting the island of Sint Maarten/Saint-Martin, I crossed the Dutch/French border daily because we stayed on the French side and most of the tourist points are on the Dutch side. It's really awesome.