Comments on: If you’re a rail passenger Schengen is a myth

By: Linca

Linca — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 17:53:49 +0000

The Paris-Firenze-Roma nighttrain did go through Switzerland last time I took it…

By: Paul Lettan

Paul Lettan — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:21:40 +0000

When I think of it, a similar thing happens in the United States especially if you are not driving on the Freeways. It is quite common to be pulled over by state and county police if you have out of state number plates. Even on Freeways state troopers might follow you for as much as 30 miles.

By: Eurosocialiste

Eurosocialiste — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:52:32 +0000

This is clearly worrying. I remember taking the bus from Amsterdam to Paris and getting random controls, clearly targeted at non-Europeans. In France this is called the flying customs (la douane volante) and they can check you wherever you are on the French territory, from what I understood. But what you describe is clearly different as they checked you at the border. That’s a shame and that should be fought against.

By: Paul Lettan

Paul Lettan — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 08:44:02 +0000

A Hungarian friend of mine who stewards on trains between Hungary and St Pancras International tells me it has to do with trade union negotiations at the time of the introduction of Schengen. There was supposed to be a cut off date but I gather that Interpol or whatever it is called these days objected. It is primarily a policing matter and not a customs issue!

By: Citizen of Europe

Citizen of Europe — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:14:10 +0000

Everything bad is good for something. If we can a federation in Europe, we must learn from it. In the federation, every citizen and inhabitant has to have an unlimited right to move without restriction in all federation’s territory and settle anywhere in it; and the federal constitution must express it clearly. I wrote something about it in http://federal-constitution-of-europe.blogspot.com/2009/07/relations-of-union-and-member-states-3.html. Manners of current EU members are due to its international nature and to that there is no authority that can force the member states.

By: Brusselsblogger

Brusselsblogger — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:50:37 +0000

I know at least that if you pass through Germany with a non-German car it is likely that the German police makes a control when you stop at a gas station or Autobahn restaurant. At least when you are not alone in the car and wearing business dress.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:13:25 +0000

Frontier checks in cases of a hightened security situation might once in a while occur and are part of the Schengen treaty, but your experiences sound worrying. Without any apparent reason reintroducing border controls on certain international train routes is contrary to border free travel.

Tomorrow, I’ll travel to Paris by car. Am curious to see if there is any sight of border guards on the border between Belgium and France.

By: Julien Frisch

Julien Frisch — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:54:02 +0000

I also got pissed twice of the last two years, first in the night train from Paris to Barcelona with controls at the French-Spanish border (one had to hand in the passport to the conductor before going to sleep which I refused because I wanted to be controlled in person) and the second time coming from Rotterdam in June where the border police checked everyone in the train who looked foreign (including the Americans sitting nearby).

How can we prevent this from happening?