The Schengen Agreement was signed on June 14, 1985 between France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. Today, the total area of the Schengen zone is 3.5 million km², with a population of 400 million inhabitants. Before the enlargement, the Schengen zone included Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden.
It was expected that the enlargement would take place in October 2007, but by that date it was not possible to agree on all technical and legal issues. On December 21, controls at sea and land borders were lifted. However, to abolish controls at airports, the new members of the Schengen Agreement first had to connect to a unified information system, which took three months.
Now a passenger flying from one Schengen country to another does not have to go through passport control. Although, as officials note, in some cases, for security reasons, checks are allowed. In addition, despite the abolition of passport control, the passenger must carry an identity document. This could be a driver's license or any other document with a photo, necessary for the passenger to be checked in for the flight. At the same time, a passenger flying to a country not in the Schengen zone or arriving from such a country must still undergo border control.
On the occasion of the expansion of the Schengen zone, most countries that joined the agreement in December 2007 modernized their airports. New terminals were built in Warsaw, Prague, Tallinn, and Budapest.
Now, according to the new rules, passengers will be divided into citizens of the Schengen zone and all others. Special corridors have been allocated for citizens of the Schengen zone, where only baggage screening and checks related to flight safety remain.
Schengen visas are now divided into several categories: A - airport transit without the right to enter the territory of a Schengen country, B - transit with the right to enter the territory of a Schengen country when traveling from a third country to a country outside Schengen, C - short-term, with a stay of three months. In addition, there are longer-term multivisas. After the accession of new countries to the Schengen Agreement, they also retained national visas - under category D. But they are intended mainly for those who are going to a Schengen country for study or work.
According to experts, the abolition of passport control should significantly simplify the movement of air passengers and make air traffic between Schengen zone countries even more intensive. However, criticism can also be heard in EU government bodies. Skeptics believe that the expansion of the Schengen zone, which, by the way, cost about €1 billion, could provoke an increase in crime.
Ivan SOTNIKOV.
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