Thread: Mexico
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Old 22-03-2007, 16:55   #56
haku haku is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dradeel View Post
Offtop:

What about the Schengen agreement? Is that more or less the same as EEA now? I believe Schengen involved border control and that sorta stuff...? Hehehe.
Offtop:
It's not the same thing, the EEA agreement is about relations between the EU and EEA countries (it only applies to citizens of the EU and of EEA countries), the Schengen agreement is about relations between the EU (+EEA+Switzerland) and the rest of the world.

Before the Schengen agreement, a non-EU non-EEA citizen had to obtain a visa from each EU state or EEA country they wanted to visit and had to have their passport checked at every border crossing (even at EU internal borders). Now they simply have to obtain one single Schengen visa and have their passport checked only once when they first enter the Schengen area, after that they can travel freely within the Schengen area.

The Schengen agreement hasn't changed anything for EU citizens, except to see the final destruction of internal border posts. EU citizens could of course already cross internal borders without any checks, but those border posts were still used to check non-EU citizens (like a Japanese tourist going from France to Germany for example), with the Schengen agreement those border posts became totally useless and were demolished.
A typical internal EU border looks like this now, a simple sign on the side of the road indicates which EU state you're entering and that's it, no barrier of any kind.
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