Schengen ain't what it used to be

As a Dane living in Denmark, I don’t think it’s a big problem. We don’t show passports when entering Germany, only when returning to Denmark. And several times, if I forgot my passport, a driver’s license has been sufficient. Passport control is not really, if I have to be direct, aimed at the locals.<p>Unfortunately, Schengen has made it easy for organized crime. On the simpler end, for example, bicycle theft, cargo bike theft, and electric bike battery theft have exploded, and the police do not have the resources to solve it. When they occasionally caught the perpetrators and deported them, a couple of months could pass before they encountered the same people again. There is a lot of that kind of thing in Denmark, and unfortunately, it is often people from Eastern European countries who are behind it. I am not far-right, but it is a fact. The ironic thing is that border control doesn’t really solve anything. There is no control when you drive out of the country (possibly with stolen goods), and there is no round-the-clock passport control at all border crossings.

The only EU border I know of that has a 24&#x2F;7 checkpoint with gunned police is Germany Austria. And that is going on for years now. Nowhere else did I ever see a border here with permanent (and constantly heavy armed) checks.<p>Also I live in Switzerland an no border is controlled permanently, generally I only was controlled once many years ago.

Passengers going through without document checks is a minor element of Schengen. The heavy hitter are the trucks passing borders much faster and with no admin expenses - saves EU countries many billions of EUR annually.

Two years ago on our summer holiday we were driving in our camper van from northern Italy to Chamonix through the Mont Blanc tunnel. We were surprised to encounter a similar passport check, before entering the queue to pass through the tunnel.<p>Last summer I was half way from Amsterdam to Berlin in my van when I remembered I had forgot my passport. I am an American citizen with a Netherlands residency permit, and I remembered the experience the previous summer so I turned around and blew my first day on extra travel. I passed through 4 countries on that trip and I never needed my passport.

I&#x27;ve visited the France Italy border near Menton fairly regularly over many years. Pre EU there were border controls then with the &#x27;border free europe&#x27; they disappear completely for a while. Now they are back in a partial way because there were loads of African and similar illegal immigrants and none of the countries really want them so the French set up controls to try to stop them crossing from Italy.

Border controls don&#x27;t bother me much if they&#x27;re just a quick check. Countries need to verify that who is coming in is who they say they are. My problem with Schengen Zone is that you can only spend 3 months there and have to leave. There was a time you could go to Europe and spend an entire year traveling country to country, now it&#x27;s only a 3 months.

The only solution I can think of is for Frontex to take full control of the external EU border. The way I see it, Frontex officers guarding the border would answer directly to Frontex (NOT to some national authority), would be paid by Frontex and, in case of misbehavior, would be prosecuted by an EU prosecutor.<p>This approach would greatly reduce the smuggling of illegal immigrants (which, in my opinion, happens because many Southern and - especially - Eastern national borders are porous due to easily bribable border guards). Sadly, I don’t see this happening anytime soon.

Well yes internal borders work fine when external borders are taken seriously, not when countries are pretty much forced to accept anyone thanks to human trafficking orgs and lax regulation imagined for war times not for &quot;my country sucks&quot; type of problem.<p>&gt; And yet: countries like Denmark are safer and more prosperous than ever before.<p>Maybe ask the Swedes about how things are going there (apart from internet hyperboles, which tend to exaggerate things)

Anecdotal, but: this is probably more of a Denmark thing and not a Schengen thing. I recently crossed French, Dutch, German, and Polish borders on 4 separate trips and had no checks.

As an Austrian I&#x27;m very disappointed by this overall development. I grew up in a much more unified European Union and the degradation of Schengen is a very visible sign that something is happening to the union and what&#x27;s happening is bad news. We have been a leading actor in the destruction of Schengen sadly for internal stupid political reasons.

Last week our bus (private travel company) was stoped on borders from France to Germany. They checked IDs of whole bus.<p>Entering Germany from west is more controlled than from east (never been checked from Czechia or Poland).

&gt; And yet, since we moved to Denmark 3 years ago, every time we&#x27;ve returned to Denmark through Padborg, we&#x27;ve been met by border control<p>Sorry, but that&#x27;s just business as usual. Document checks on trains have continued to be a thing despite Schengen since its inception, and are even common on commuter lines. I don&#x27;t have any hard numbers on their effectiveness, but it&#x27;s not unusual to see people being detained as a result (which is <i>risky</i> for the detaining agency, as mistakes are quite costly), so I guess there is a net positive there?<p>Note that, from a passenger PoV, these checks usually consist of &quot;vaguely waving your ID card at the officers passing by&quot; (i.e. less effort than having your ticket checked, which involves interaction with an RFID scanner...), which makes this ominous think-piece even less convincing.

I always find it ironic how Denmark is proud of Vikings and protects borders at the same time. There’re axes on border guards’ uniforms. Also, the traffic lights have a viking with an axe instead of a regular figure. Yet Vikings were universally hated back in the day for not respecting borders.

Checking IDs is the standard model in the US along the border states in the south (don&#x27;t know about the north).<p>My earliest border police checkpoint was in &#x27;87, south east of Phoenix on the way to LA. My buddies from Las Cruces always use to remind us to carry your ids, but then they used to do the beer runs across the border as it was cheaper.<p>Who here think embedded ID chip is not coming - you know, to save labor costs