EU people, I have a question!
 

I noticed that when driving between EU countries there are no border crossings, no booth to drive up to and get questioned about citizenship, etc...

So for example, if you drive from France into Germany there is no border crossing, and nobody checks your passport.

But if you take the boat between the UK and France, they will check your passport.

Why?

The UK isn't fully EU yet. Plus there's other tensions there I think...between every country that's full EU, no checks. Denmark also, you get your passport checked sometimes coming in.

-doug

There shouldn't be any border crossing, unless the border control wants to fuck with ye.

No,

Between EU-schengen countries there are no passport control. UK is not a member of schengen yet

I've heard of this schengen thing, but don't know what it is. What is it?

A borderless EU. You travel free within all schengen countries. In the old days you got a visa to a specific EU country. Now you get a schengen visa and can travel in all schengen countries.

That is not true.

They do check passports etc in Greece
regardless if you come from a schengen country or not. If mooring in Greece pleasure boat harbors you must vistit the police staion as well. Pay for using Greece waters. So much for schengen!
Sweden do check passports if they "suspect" something (schengen member)

It seems to me that old socialist and military countries do feel an urge to control people!

When driving thru Europe a wihle ago the only country with custom people and police at the border was Sweden.
( Custom checkpoint )
Between Italy, Austria and Germany you could hardly see the border.

There is supposed to be no border controls internally within the EU. That is a directive within the EU I believe. But, some countries got exemptions from the directive. The UK was one. I believe the major reason put forward by the UK at the time was to control domesticated animal imports (rabies and the like). Of course, there were other not so publicized reasons. Like we don't like the French! :)

Don't quote me on that!

U.K to France = Yes you will get checked
France to Germany = Rarely
Germany To Austria = Sometimes
Austria to Hungary = YES
Hungary to Romania = YES
Romania to Russia = YES
....

:)

Read the thread. Its about EU countries not European countries

all eu citizens can travel without a visa to uk, and vice versa. the uk is fully eu (apart from not having euro yet), it just has a veto on certain things like immigration. We get way too many ecconomic migrants here so something has to be done, and also with the terrorist problems at the moment and as someone said rabies etc it is a good thing. it's only a case of flashing your passport and doesn't take much time.

If you flew into Paris from London your passport would be checked. Is it not the case that you need a passport to fly from - lets say - Frankfurt to Paris?

Maybe it has something to do with the method of travel and the need to either use a ferry or train.

Train, no, going from Germany -> Netherlands, Italy->Austria->Germany,Belgium -> Netherlands, never got checked for passport, just ticket. Of course going through non-EU countries, like Switzerland, and also going from the UK to continental Europe yes. France, they do have an intimidating little checkpoint driving in but all we had to do was slow down (driving not train obviously). :thumbsup

-doug