Schengen Agreement

The practicalities of free movement within an area without internal border controls were first set out by the Schengen Agreement in 1985 and the subsequent Schengen Convention in 1995 that abolished controls on internal borders between the signatory countries. France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands agreed on 14 June 1985 to sign an agreement on the gradual abolition of checks at the common borders. This became known as the Schengen Agreement , after the name of the town in Luxembourg where it was signed. The Schengen Convention was signed in June 1990 and came into effect in March 1995. By that time, other EU Member States (Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece) had joined the initial signatories of this inter- governmental agreement signed outside the EU framework. The Schengen Convention abolished the checks at internal borders of the signatory States and created a single external frontier, where checks for all the Schengen signatories were to be carried out in accordance with a common set of rules.

The link address is: http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/freetravel/frontiers/fsj_freetravel_schengen_en.htm