Schengen Agreement
The Schengen treaty is an agreement originally signed in on June 14, 1985, by seven European Union countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Portugal and Spain). The agreement was signed in Schengen, a small town in Luxembourg on the border with France and Germany. Its goal is to end border checkpoints and controls within the Schengen area and harmonize external border controls.
Greyish: Signatories (not yet applied)
On June 19, 1990 five of the above countries (Germany, France and the Benelux nations) signed a further document called the Schengen Convention (or more fully Convention applying the Schengen Agreement of 14 June 1985 between the governments of the states of the Benelux Economic Union, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the French Republic on the gradual abolition of checks at their common borders).
Additional countries have since also joined the convention, making the full number of signatories twenty-five:
- November 27, 1990 - Italy
- June 25, 1992 - Spain, Portugal
- November 6, 1992 - Greece
- April 28, 1995 - Austria
- December 19, 1996 - Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland
- May 1, 2004 - Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia
Full implementation of the Schengen treaty began in July 1995 with the removal of internal border controls between six Schengen member states.
However the Schengen treaty procedures won't be applied to the ten newest countries before 2006 or later, with the date of application set for every country independently from the others -- therefore currently only fifteen countries can be said to be full members of the Schengen Treaty.
On May 19, 2004, the European Commission announced in consequence of talks between European and Swiss officials that it expected Switzerland to join the Schengen treaty within the next three years.
All Schengen countries except Norway and Iceland are European Union members. Two EU members (Ireland and the United Kingdom) are in the European Union but have reserved to remain outside the Schengen area.
See also
External links
- Schengen Countries (source for this article)
- http://europa.eu.int/en/agenda/schengen.html
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