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The Schengen cooperation
25 countries take part in the cooperation
22 of the 27 Member States of the EU have become a party to Schengen. Norway, Iceland and Switzerland, who are not EU members, have signed a cooperation agreement, which means that travellers can enter these countries on the same terms as for a Schengen country.
Bulgaria, Cyprus, Ireland, Romania and the UK are not a party of Schengen.
Moving freely is the guiding principle
The guiding principle is that all persons legally present in the Schengen zone can move about freely without having to show passports when crossing internal frontiers.
These internal frontiers are defined as the national boundaries between the countries taking part in Schengen, together with airports and seaports in the case of traffic to and from a Schengen country. You can cross the internal frontiers wherever and whenever you like without having to undergo personal checks.
At the zone's external boundaries, i.e. the borders with countries that are not a party to the Schengen Agreement, all travellers are to be carefully checked, however. You may only cross these borders at special checkpoints and only during predetermined opening hours.
If you are not a citizen of a Schengen country, you may need a visa in order to enter the Schengen zone. Such visas are usually valid in all
Schengen countries
and entitle the bearer to travel freely between them until the visa expires.
Once they have legally entered a Schengen country, those who are not required to have visas may travel freely about the zone for three months at the most.
Foreign citizens with residence permits in a Schengen country, and whose identities have been properly established, may also travel freely in the zone for three months This means, for instance, that a foreign citizen living in Sweden may visit friends living in another Schengen country without having to apply for a visa first. Asylum-seekers, however, are not entitled to travel freely between the Schengen countries.
The Schengen Information System, SIS
To comply with the Schengen requirements, Sweden has taken a number of steps: laws have been amended, airports and seaports have been redesigned and Sweden has joined the Schengen Information System, SIS.
SIS allows border police, the customs and others to search for and exchange information. Each SIS member may enter computerised particulars about persons, vehicles or objects that are missing or wanted.
The SIS also has a blacklist that allows the participating countries to keep a record of persons they do not wish to see entering the Schengen zone. This list is consequently of major importance for the individual.
A person on the blacklist may have committed a serious crime, for instance, or may have been expelled or deported and ordered not to re-enter a country for a specific period of time.
Common visa policy
An important part of the Schengen scheme is its common visa policy. Agreement has been reached on which countries' citizens require visas to enter the Schengen zone and which do not.
A visa issued in a Schengen country is valid for three months at the most, and usually also for visits to any of the other Schengen countries. To obtain this kind of common visa, applicants must satisfy the requirements for entry into the Schengen zone. Consequently, the authorities concerned check the SIS before deciding an application.
In certain exceptional cases, a Schengen country may grant a visa although the general entry requirements have not been met, for example if there are humanitarian grounds for doing so. Such visas do not allow the bearer to move freely about the Schengen zone. They are called national visas and only apply in their country of issue.
You apply for entry visas at an embassy or consulate (diplomatic mission) prior to arrival. The general rule is that you apply for a visa at the embassy/consulate of the country you mainly intend to visit. In certain cases, Sweden does not have a diplomatic mission of its own but is represented by some other Schengen country.
As a rule, the embassy/consulate itself can decide visa applications. In more complicated cases, it may pass on the application to the Migration Board in Sweden for a decision.
Background
Over the years the member states of the EU have found it difficult to agree on how to achieve the free movement of persons. Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Germany and the Netherlands eventually decided to launch a joint scheme outside the EU´s regulatory framework. In 1985, they signed an intergovernmental agreement in the town of Schengen in Luxembourg that came to be known as the "Schengen Agreement". This accord provided for the gradual abolition of controls at the signatories' common borders.
In 1990, the countries signed a Convention setting out in detail how the Agreement was to be applied and free movement to be achieved in practice. The Convention came into force in 1995, when border controls were abolished between the five original countries plus Spain and Portugal.
The Convention includes provisions on things like police cooperation, judicial cooperation and the strengthening of the Schengen zone's external borders. The idea is to ensure that the principle of free movement does not benefit international crime. Consequently, the Schengen countries cooperate on the prevention and investigation of criminal activities — including drugs offences — and on curbing illegal immigration.
When the Amsterdam Agreement came into force in 1999, Schengen cooperation became a part of the EU and is now governed by EU rules and provisions.
