Schengen Information System - History

History

The Treaty of Rome of March 25, 1957, as well as the treaty instituting the economic Union of the Benelux countries of February 3, 1958, had, from their inception, the goal of free movement of persons and goods. The Benelux countries, as a smaller group, were able to quickly implement this integration. For the European Community, the focus was initially on economic integration, and it was not until after the signing of the agreement of Saarbrücken, between France and Germany on July 13, 1984, that significant reductions of the controls on persons at the borders between these two states were made.

Joined by the three member states of Benelux, these five countries signed the Schengen Agreement, on June 14, 1985, for the purpose of gradually establishing free movement of persons and goods between them. Although seemingly simple, the Schengen Agreement presented a number of practical difficulties to implementation. One tradeoff for the freedom of movement of people and goods was that each state had to relinquish a portion of its autonomy, trusting its partners to carry out measures necessary to its own safety and security.

In order for the reduction of interior border checks to be done without causing a reduction in national security for member states, and in particular because Europe already faced a real terrorist threat, compensatory measures needed to be implemented .

Drafting the text took five years. It was only on June 19, 1990 that the five precursory states who signed the Schengen Agreement Application Convention of June 14, 1985 (SAAC), began to be gradually joined by Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Austria and the five Nordic Passport Union countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.

On December 21, 2007, Schengen border-free zone was once more enlarged to include nine new nations: Estonia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.