There was (is I guess) concern about the open border between Northern Ireland and Ireland and the fact that only the latter is in the EU. This problem already existed with the Norway-Sweden border. How did they hadn’t that?
Norway is a member of the European Economic Area which has a very close relationship with the European Union, unlike Northern Island which is a part of the UK which left the EU with Brexit:
Yes I know that, but I’m wondering how the open border works. Norway and Sweden have an open border. Sweden had an open border with the EU, but Norway does not, but I don’t see how Norway could ever stop people from entering once they got into the EU. That is the same issue with GB and Ireland that was and maybe still is a concern.
That is incorrect. Norway is part of the Schengen Area:
If you are talking about free movement of people (rather than goods) the Irish border is a special case. UK and Ireland (and the Isle of Man and Channel Islands) are in a Common Travel Area. This is why Ireland is not a member of Schengen, and there are border controls when entering the Schengen area from Ireland or vice versa, but no border controls on the Irish border.
Norway and Sweden handle it differently - Norway is in the Schengen area, so there is free movement of people across Norway’s borders with the EU.
Swedish person answering. It actually has nothing to to with EU. The Nordic countries have had open borders since 1952 or 1954, depending on how you look at it as it was a two step process.
Open borders means just that, we’re free to move and do business. We can also move to another Nordic country and become residents. Plenty of Swedish people work in Norway (better pay) and quite a few Danes live in Sweden (lower taxes). The whole setup functions with little or no friction.
But… there are border control and customs checks. Things that are legal in Denmark (medical weed) is strictly prohibited in Sweden, which in turns has much lower prices on booze than Norway, so they come here to stock up, but there’s a limit to how much they are allowed to take home.
So the borders are open, for a given value of open. I live across the water from Denmark and when I want to catch a flight, I get on the commuter train to Copenhagen (runs every 20 mins and costs about eight bucks) and step off inside the terminal at Scandinavias largest airport. No one ever ask me for ID.
But, being Swedish and looking stereotypical Nordic, I don’t have the problems black or MENA people have. It’s not quite “driving while black,” as in the U.S. but there are complains every so often about racial profiling.
TL;DR
We’ve had this for over 70 years, so it’s not something people think about (unless they don’t look Scandinavian).
I’ve seen a lot of changes over the past 20+ years. It used to be the case that you would never be asked for ID but in more recent years I’ve encountered passport checks on the railway platform itself in Copenhagen airport and also been stopped for passport check when entering Sweden from Denmark by car. The latter incident was no joke - my wife is legally resident in Ireland but is not an EU citizen and we had no way to prove she had not exceeded 90 days in Schengen. Thankfully the Swedish police decided to just let us go.
I guess things have changed in 60 years but I knew a Norwegian who was a student in Oslo and would drive to his home in Kirkenes on a road that went in and out of Sweden and the border crossings were even marked. When he saw another vehicle coming on the narrow road he had to guess whether swerve to the left or right (Sweden still had left side drive).
I’m aware of that. I was in Norway (mostly) and Sweden in the summer of 1966 (just when you were getting ready to switch to right hand drive). I went back and forth across the border easily without hassle. I guess it helped that I’m blonde with blue eyes, but many of the border crossings consisted of a welcoming sign and advice to keep right or left as depending which way you were going. As far as I knew, you were never checked at all crossing the border.
From the BBC website:
Sweden has issued international arrest warrants for two Britons suspected of illegally importing 10m euros (£8m) worth of garlic into the EU via Norway. Why would criminals do that?
Swedish state prosecutors claim to have cracked one of Europe’s more seemingly strange, if lucrative, smuggling rings.
They say two British men are believed to have made millions of euros smuggling Chinese garlic from Norway into Sweden.
The EU imposes a 9.6% duty on imported foreign garlic.
The confusion in such discussions often comes from the fact that people mean different things when they speak of “open borders” in the context of the EU and associated countries.
One meaning is that of absence of border checks. This is governed by Schengen: Countries that are members of the Schengen area don’t have border checks among each other, and visas issued by one country to a third country national allow travel to the entire area.
The other meaning is free movement of people. Nationals of a country that enjoys free movement rights have the right to relocate to another country and live and work there with no need for a residence or work permit.
The two are neither synonymous nor do they coincide. The UK was never part of Schengen, but prior to Brexit it was part of the free movement of people regime of the EU. That means that when I moved to the UK to attend university in 2008, I did not need a residence permit, but I still had to go through immigration control at British airports. The same still applies to Denmark: It’s an EU member with freedom of movement relative to the rest of the EU, but it’s not part of Schengen.
Conversely, Switzerland is part of Schengen but not the EU (nor of the EEA that others have mentioned). If I travel to Switzerland from Germany, I won’t have to go through any type of border checks. But if I wanted to emigrate to Switzerland to live there, I’d still need a residence permit (and a work permit, if I want to get a job).
Not quite.
Denmark maintains an opt-out from the wider AFSJ policy area, but has adopted the Schengen acquis on an intergovernmental basis, however with an exemption for the autonomous territories of Greenland and Faroe Islands. Denmark does not have voting rights for introductions and revocations of measures applied to the Schengen Area as a result of this opt-out.[
IOW: Denmark is part of the Schengen area, but not the accord. For all practical puposes, it’s part of Schengen,
OK, I stand corrected on Denmark - I was aware that the country has a derogation that exempts it from the mandatory provisions of Schengen as a matter of binding EU law, but apparently it applies the same provisions on a voluntary basis. Which the UK never did, not even before Brexit; it was never part of the Schengen area, but it did and does maintain the “Common Travel Area” with Ireland and the other smaller islands around (Man, Guernsey, Jersey). EU citizens now need a residence and work permit to live and work in the UK (before Brexit they wouldn’t need that) unless they are grandfathered in as a result of having been settled in the UK at the time of Brexit already; with the exception of Irish citizens, who are largely treated equivalent to UK nationals as a matter of domestic UK law.
Yep, outside of working for the defence or intelligence industries it’s a “too all intents…” it’s equivalent.
Sorry if I missed the mention in the thread, yet Norway has a border with Finland and Russia too. The latter is patrolled, most likely to keep people from leaving. If you’re gonna smuggle anything that way, the guards wouldn’t mind lots of butter.