Thursday, October 22, 2009

Europe Without Borders

Last night we went to a concert in Lille, France, which is about 45 minutes from our house. Every time we've gone to or through France in this direction on the autoroute, we've had to slow down to 10 kilometers an hour as we passed through the choke point that used to be the customs and border control area. In fact, we've actually seen cars being pulled over there, despite the fact that Belgium and France are both in the Schengen Zone. Last night, as we approached the border, we entered a road construction zone. Lo and behold, the left-over border control and customs police shacks have disappeared, and the road is being repaved in two normal-sized lanes with no nothing to slow you down as you cross over into France.

It's about dang time. France and Belgium were among the original signatories to the 1985 Schengen Agreement, which provided for the removal of border controls between participating countries. Ok, according to Wikipedia, it's the "gradual" removal of border controls.

Twenty-four years is pretty gradual.

1 comment:

Pop said...

Interesting. Maybe the two countries (states in the sense that the the new Euro concept is supposed to operate) had to wait for the dollar to fall to a new low. (That doesn't even make sense to me.) When Janie and I were in Europe in 2000, some border controls were operating and some were not. Our poor bus driver never knew quite what to do upon approaching one. So it's good to hear that progress is being made at last. Remember that Rome was not built in a day.