SCHENGEN AREA
WHY IN NEWS ?
- Recently it was found that India was among the 10 countries with highest rejection rates for schengen visa in 2022.
WHAT IS SCHENGEN AREA ?
- A Schengen visa is an official document mandatory for some non-Europeans to travel toall the 27 countries which are part of the Schengen area.
- Once granted, this visa allows the traveller to cross the borders of the other member-states without going through identity checks at the border.
- There are several types of Schengen visa but the most common allows to travel/stay for 90 days.
- It started in 1985 as an intergovernmental project between five EU countries– France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg – and has gradually expanded to become the largest free travel area in the world.
- Most European Union (EU) countries are signatories to the Schengen Agreement, although some non-Schengen countries, like Bulgaria and Romania, are signed up but not yet active members and merely obliged to join in the future.
- Switzerland, Iceland, and Norway are not in the EU but are inside of the Schengen Area.
COUNTRIES PART OF SCHENGEN:
- Today, the Schengen area covers over 4 million square kilometres with a population of almost 420 million people, and includes 27 countries:
- 23 of the 27 EU member states
- All members of the European Free Trade Association (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland)
- On 1 January 2023, Croatia became the 27th country to fully join the Schengen area. Controls at the internal borders with Bulgaria, Cyprus and Romania have not yet been lifted, and Ireland is not part of the Schengen area.
WHAT DOES VISA-FREE TRAVEL MEAN ?
- Being part of an area without internal border controls means that countries:
- do not carry out checks at their internal borders, except in cases of specific threats
- carry out harmonised controls at their external borders, based on clearly defined criteria
- The set of rules governing the Schengen area is called Schengen Borders Code.
BENEFITS OF SCHENGEN :
- The Schengen area allows more than 400 million people to travel freely between member countries without going through border controls.
- Every day around 3.5 million people cross internal borders for work or study or to visit families and friends, and almost 1.7 million people reside in one Schengen country while working in another.
- Europeans make an estimated 1.25 billion journeys within the Schengen area every year, which also greatly benefits the tourism and cultural sector.
- The Schengen area brings significant economic benefits to all citizens and businesses in its participating states. It is designed to be the bedrock of the European Union and of the single market as a whole.
SYLLABUS: PRELIMS, CURRENT AFFAIRS
