Switzerland soon in the Schengen Area?

[Spiffor]

From LoA's thread

Avec la participation à Schengen, le contrôle systématique des personnes aux frontières doit être aboli.

"With the agreement of Schengen, the systematic border control must be abolished"

LoA: Yes, it's true. At least, if this link is to be believed.

However, it doesn't mean that there can be no control at all regarding population fluxes. When crossing the German border in the train, I fairly often see border-people checking the ID of brown people. I also hear that there are border patrols in most trains outbound from the Netherlands

Also, there is a border-check booth in any international airport. The check is considerably simplified for EU residents, but it_'s here nonehteless.

[BeBMan]

Re: Switzerland soon in the Schengen Area?

Originally posted by Spiffor
However, it doesn't mean that there can be no control at all regarding population fluxes. When crossing the German border in the train, I fairly often see border-people checking the ID of brown people.

OMG racism!

[Lawrence of Arabia]

yeah, which is true, they do check brown people. the last time i was at the airport in geneva, the only guys they pulled over for inspection were non whites. however, along this tiny road through the Jura which goes to France, there were border guards/ army who were checking everyone in both directions, no matter what color (we went that way to go see the tour de france.) schengen means less checking and more waving them through i guess huh. maybe ill vote no now.

[Spiffor]

Schengen is seriously convenient for those who cross the borders on a regular basis. In the case of Switzerland, I can think of two places where the lack of border controls can be especially interesting:

Basel. Its airport is located in France. It must be pretty bothersome to have long border waiting times whenever you want to take your plane

The Constance lake area. There's much tourism there, that can be integrated between Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The checks on the Swiss borders make it a hassle to go to Switzerland.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
schengen means less checking and more waving them through i guess huh. maybe ill vote no now.

I really don't see why you oppose it?

[Lawrence of Arabia]

dont want criminals coming into the country.

Basel. Its airport is located in France. It must be pretty bothersome to have long border waiting times whenever you want to take your plane

yeah, and the train station for france and germany and switzerland is located in switzerland

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
dont want criminals coming into the country.

I haven't heard that Schengen made it more difficult to catch criminals. If a criminal wants to enter Switzerland, he can simply walk on the mountain, far from the roads and its checkpoints anyway

[Lawrence of Arabia]

I haven't heard that Schengen made it more difficult to catch criminals. If a criminal wants to enter Switzerland, he can simply walk on the mountain, far from the roads and its checkpoints anyway

yeah its true, only 150 out of the 600 roads into and out of the country have checkpoints. but thats still better than zero. it makes asylum more difficult too, if an EU country rejects an asylum request, he cannot request asylum into another EU country.

what about trucks and stuff. will schengen eliminate the border checks on shipments?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
what about trucks and stuff. will schengen eliminate the border checks on shipments?

I don't know (I almost never cross a border while in a car). I seem to remember long truck waiting lines at the borders (while individual cars went through smoothly), but this distant memory may well be from the Swiss border

[Lawrence of Arabia]

we're also voting on gay marriage.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

they are also talking about deregulating the telephone industry (swisscom would lose its monopoloy) does schengen make it easier for foreign firms to come in and give us cheaper service? (like Deutsche Telekom, or France Telecom, or are those also monopolies)

[Spiffor]

AFAIK, Schengen has nothing to do with competition policies. They're EU policies, not Schengen ones.

[BlackCat]

Schengen is a pure justice matter, that is borarder control etc - no influence on industry or monopolies.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

well, both mesures passed. the schengen/dublin with 54.6% yes, and the gay marriage by 58.03%. voting participation was at 55.9%

[Lawrence of Arabia]

http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/fr/index/themen/politik/abstimmungen/blank/kennzahlen0/2005/01.html

To Schengen, the cantons of Geneva, Vaud, Valais, Neuchatel and Bale-City voted yes between 63% and 71% to schengen.