Crossing borders within Schengen zone

Germany boosts border controls with France after Nice attack
by Reuters
Friday, 15 July 2016 08:57u GMT
BERLIN, July 15 (Reuters) – Germany will boost border controls at airports as well as road and rail crossings into France after the truck attack in Nice, the Federal Police said on Friday.

“In coordination with the French security authorities the federal police are strengthening their control in the area of cross-border traffic into France,” the police said in a statement.

http://news.trust.org/item/20160715085803-wa9nx/

IMO Peter is right: The borderless Schengen is unlikely to ever be fully implemented again…

Peter wrote:

With today’s security issues, Schengen is just about finished except for the allowed matrix of airports which has not (yet) changed.

Please don’t say that, at least not as a piece of current information. Except for France, there has not been any mass reintroduction of intra-Schengen passport checks in (general) aviation. This may change, but currently Schengen is still alive for most of Europe, especially in aviation.

You need no flightplan and no special procedure, and not even radio contact crossing the border.
- From Germany to the Czech Republic
- From Germany to Poland
- From Germany to Austria
A Flightplan is only necessary if you fly to the large commercial airports, in all three countries.

• from Germany to Belgium and vice versa; however I do believe radio contact is required when crossing the FIR boundary.

A Flightplan is only necessary if you fly to the large commercial airports, in all three countries.

That is mainly because larger airports tend to have a CTR which is usually class C or D – and a flight plan is always required for flight into controlled airspace. At many places, it can be the air filed “short-form” flight plan, though.

So a FP is required in all these cases if there is CAS at either end?

What about CAS enroute? Is that covered by a radio contact?

ISTR from ground class that even airways are considered controlled airspace. Which would make sense, come to think of it.

Filing a FP is a two minute exercise from your smart phone or tablet….no big deal…the concern is the reintroduction of border controls intra-EU….which will surely come as the only way to restrict the free movement of questionable people is to restrict the free movement of all people…sadly inevitable I’d say…

AnthonyQ wrote:

which will surely come as the only way to restrict the free movement of questionable people is to restrict the free movement of all people…sadly inevitable I’d say

I hope not. The latest terror attack, apparently was committed by someone not “know to police” as far as I understand. So they wouldn’t have been stopped from crossing any EU border even if subject to check.

Last year I made a trip to German, via France (and via the UK, although the UK stop was caused by weather rather than intentional). But if highlights the differences beautifully.

The evening before departure, we were looking at the weather and were less than hopeful about making it to our first planned stop, which was to be in France. We still hoped to make it, but it wasn’t looking likely. We’d have preferred to make that decision on the morning of departure, but that wasn’t possible, because if we were to land in the UK, we needed to give 12 hours notice (despite the common travel area).

So notifications were sent to the Irish & UK authorities for a landing at the first possibility in the UK (Caernarfon EGCK). In the end, we had to use this, and didn’t get out that day. The next day we had to give notice to the French authorities of our expected arrival.

Having spent a few days in France, we moved on to Germany. For the first time, we weren’t bounded by departure or arrival times. We simply went to airport, filed a flight plan from my iPad, and flew. It was so much easier, and much more flexible, especially if you’re waiting for a break in the weather.

I really hope it doesn’t go back to controls for each border crossing in Europe again.

Peter wrote:

With today’s security issues, Schengen is just about finished

It’s only France where you need passport, due to the special situation there. In no other country (Schengen) I would need passport, and Norway is not even member of the EU. But customs is really not all that much customs as it used to be. There are very few items that have customs. It’s the sales tax that is different, and you have to pay sales tax when you import something (for personal use). There are quotas for things you can bring without paying sales tax, and the customs don’t care if you already have paid sales tax in EU, that is your business to take care of. We can import (or export) anything, as long as we pay sales tax. For instance, when I purchase aviation gadgets from the UK, I don’t pay EU sales tax, only Norwegian sales tax, and this sales tax is paid to the customs office.

The EEA is free movement of persons, goods, capital and services. It works perfectly well without the Schengen agreement. Also, all the Nordic countries have had these “4 freedoms” long before EU, and EU has not changed anything regarding these thing. Island and Norway are not members of EU, only Denmark, Sweden and Finland is. There is no passport control between the Nordic countries, but there is customs. (Foreigners would need to identify themselves somehow though)

Common sales tax is more of a Union thing, and requires much tighter agreements than simple free movement of stuff and people.

Anyway, I don’t see any reason why the Schengen agreement should stop working. It’s a “light” agreement that can be tuned in special circumstances, like France today, while still being fully in effect other places.

LeSving wrote:

It’s only France where you need passport, due to the special situation there. In no other country (Schengen) I would need passport, and Norway is not even member of the EU.

The reason a passport is required in your case, LeSving, is that Norway does not issue any other document which provides proof of citizenship.

Norwegians have so far been able to move around Europe with a driver’s license as sole travel document. The driver’s license is however no proof of citizenship or legal presence within Schengen.

There was a time where even a bank ID was considered as a proof of identity in Norway.

France does not AFAIK recognize even the French driver’s license a proof of identity.