Schengen Agreement

The Schengen Agreement (English pronunciation: /ˈʃɛŋən/) is a treaty which led to the creation of Europe's borderless Schengen Area. It was signed on 14 June 1985 by five of the ten member states of the then European Economic Community near the town of Schengen, Luxembourg. It proposed the gradual abolition of border checks at the signatories' common borders. Measures proposed included reduced speed vehicle checks which allowed vehicles to cross borders without stopping, allowing residents in border areas freedom to cross borders away from fixed checkpoints and the harmonisation of visa policies.

In 1990 the Agreement was supplemented by the Schengen Convention which proposed the abolition of internal border controls and a common visa policy. The Schengen Area operates very much like a single state for international travel purposes with external border controls for travellers entering and exiting the area, and common visas, but with no internal border controls. It currently consists of 26 European countries covering a population of over 400 million people and an area of 4,312,099 square kilometres (1,664,911 sq mi).