The Schengen Area
How Europe abolished internal border controls, the enormous economic and social impact of free movement, and the crises that have tested Schengen's survival.
What the Schengen Area Is
The Schengen Area is a zone of 29 European countries that have abolished passport and border controls at their mutual borders. Named after the Luxembourg village where the original agreement was signed in 1985, Schengen allows over 400 million people to travel freely across national boundaries as if they were moving between provinces of a single country. A person can drive from Lisbon to Helsinki without showing a passport once.
Schengen is not identical to the EU. Non-EU countries like Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein are in Schengen, while EU members Ireland opted out. Romania and Bulgaria joined in 2024 after years of delay caused by political objections from existing members. The Schengen Area is arguably the most visible and personally felt achievement of European integration. It transformed a continent of guarded borders into a shared space where crossing a national boundary is as unremarkable as crossing a county line.