Schengen is catching up with Europe

On December 21st a few more countries will be entering the 1985 Schengen Agreement.

This agreement is the true implementation of what it's always mentioned by our politicians as one of the major scopes of the EU: freedom of movement.

This is the map of Schengen and the dates of implementation by State. In blue are shown the Schengen countries, in green those who are planning to join (Switzerland and Liechtenstein, two non EU State, Romania, Bulgaria and Cyprus) while the British Isles (UK and Eire) will stay out of it and still will check passports for the time being. Very odd the position of the Vatican that has expressed interest in joining.

Date of implementation	Implementing State (in bold non EU members)
26 March 1995	Belgium France Germany Luxembourg Monaco Netherlands Portugal Spain
26 October 1997	Italy
1 December 1997	Austria
26 March 2000	Greece
25 March 2001	Denmark Finland Iceland Norway Sweden
21 December 2007 for overland borders and seaports, and on 29 March 2008 for airports	Czech Republic Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Malta Poland Slovakia Slovenia

Prospective date of implementation	Implementing State
November 2008	Switzerland Liechtenstein
2009	Cyprus
2011	Bulgaria
2011	Romania

More information available on Wikipedia