Definition of Schengen Agreement

The unity of Europe is a long cherished dream, but beyond those who tried it for the force (like Napoleon), modern efforts to realize this dream in a peaceful way came after the Second World War, which was a cataclysm for the old continent.

Conjured so that something similar would never happen again, the first step in that union politics occurred in 1951 with the founding of the CECA (European Coal and Steel Community), an entity that welcomed secular enemies such as France, Germany (the FRG), or Italy among other countries.

In 1958 the EEC (European Economic Community) was founded, made up of the same countries that formed the CECA, which were gradually joined by others. This was the case of Spain and Portugal, which became part of this structure in 1986, or the United Kingdom, which had joined in 1973.

All these structures were of an economic nature, so the next logical step was to bet on a political union, which was done with the European Union in two historic treaties: Maastricht in 1992 and Lisbon in 2007.

The Schengen Agreement, signed on June 14, 1985 in the Luxembourg city of the same name and entered into In force a decade later, it allowed the abolition of customs controls between the member countries of the Union European.

In other words, an “external” border of the Union was established, but all internal borders became more “lax”, practically non-existent in the eyes of the citizens of the member countries, facilitating the free transit of a country to another.

To understand the importance of this fact, we must think in a European key: the borders of each country were, for many, something sacred, won with the blood of their compatriots throughout centuries of bloody wars that had ravaged the continent.

Nor do governments and police forces like to lose control of these demarcation lines, useful for finding from terrorists to smuggling, through escaped persons and controlling the flow of entry to the country.

The agreement creates the so-called “Schengen area”, a territory made up of several countries in which, once inside, there is no need to pass customs controls to move from one to another.

Saying territory It currently occupies all of western Europe, plus the northern part of the central one, the Baltic republics, and the Scandinavian peninsula, and even non-EU countries such as Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.

A notable exception to the integration of countries to the Schengen agreement is the United Kingdom.

With this detail, and also knowing that the United Kingdom did not become part of the euro, but instead kept its own currency, the pound sterling, Brexit cannot surprise us; the UK has always been a country very proud of its uses and traditions, independent in every way, and who has made his own path without concessions to others.

As Lord Palmerston said (premier between 1859 and 1865), Britain has neither permanent friends nor permanent enemies, only permanent interests, and this maxim is demonstrated in details such as these.

The agreement provides special conditions by which a country (or the whole) can re-establish customs controls.

These include cases of safety (as for the fight against terrorism) and in the case of massive migratory waves. These situations have already led to activation in some cases, such as France (in the midst of a wave of jihadist terrorist attacks) and Greece (for the Syrian refugee and migrant crisis Africans).

The main point of the agreement is the free mobility of European citizens.

As I have already explained before, thanks to this agreement, a person can move within the Schengen territory without having to pass customs controls.

You can also settle in any country of the Union, and travel without the need for your passport, only with the document of National identity of your country (the passport also works, of course, but it is not stamped, it is only for the confirmation of the identity).

At airports, access and exit controls differentiate between European and non-European citizens. What all of them must pass, both of them, are the security controls, obviously.

One step beyond Schengen is the European common market.

Recently, the “digital borders” that prevented, for example, the reproduction of the contents of a Spanish online service in Germany or France, for example, or vice versa, have been demolished.

Photo: Fotolia - jonybigude

Topics in the Schengen Agreement