Yesterday was a public holiday in Berlin and I took a little cycle trip along the Teltowcanal all the way to the small town Kleinmachnow, sandwiched between Zehlendorf and Potsdam, south west of Berlin. The canal itself was partly the border between East and West Germany, and East and West […]
2017 is election year in France. Le Pen is stealing votes from the traditional republican right and Nicolas Sarkozy, never one to shy away from stealing ideas to the right of him, thinks that he’s on to something to promise to tear up the Le Touquet agreement between the UK […]
“The sleepy Luxembourg village of Schengen, the place where the European Union’s border-free zone bearing the village’s name was agreed in 1985, is a symbol of how joyous a borderless Europe can be. It is 1km from the centre of the village, across the bridge over the Mosel, to Germany, […]
On Thursday 29th October I am taking the train from Berlin to Vienna, via Nürnberg. This means I will cross the German – Austrian border at Passau. But what is the status of that border at the moment? Is Schengen suspended there, or not? This is a valid question to […]
Refugees stream from Serbia into Hungary. So Orbán puts up a border fence. But then Serbia struggles to cope with the refugees on its side, and many continue to find ways to cross anyway. Refugees don’t want to stay in Hungary however as they fear Orbán’s government will not treat […]
Back on 30th June I was subjected to a non-Schengen compliant border control at Buchs in Switzerland. The full report from the border, including a transcript, can be found here. The essence of the message given by the police officer checking me was that as he was from the cantonal […]
I was a passenger on the EuroNight 60466 D. Budapest-Keleti at 2100 on 30 June 2015, scheduled arrival Zürich HB at 0820 on 1st July 2015. I was a passenger in the Sleeping Car on this service (there are three carriages from Budapest – a carriage with seats, a couchette […]
Henrik Enderlein and Jean Pisani-Ferry started to talk of an “economic Schengen” in the autumn of 2014, and Enderlein and Germany’s economy minister Gabriel were at it again today at a conference in the BMWi in Berlin. This is a really bad idea for four reasons, each of which I […]
Back in May I was subjected to the most extraordinary border control identity check at Perpignan station. I have blogged the transcript of the encounter here, and sent this to the European Commission, hoping they see this as non-Schengen compliant. The redacted letter of response from the Commission is here: […]
Three officers of the French Police Nationale boarded TGV 9702 at Perpignan at around 11am on 31st May, reaching my seat at 1106. The TGV was still stationary in Perpignan at this time, due to an obstacle on the tracks further north that held the train in the station approximately 30 […]
Back on 11th March I documented an interesting incident at the Polish-German border between Rzepin and Frankfurt(Oder) where a Polish border guard demanded my passport and would not accept a driving license as I was about to cross the border. For me this crossed the border between what is an […]
3 police officers or border guards, 2 Polish and 1 German as far as I could tell (the one who spoke to me was Polish) boarded train EC 40, the Warszawa – Berlin express, at Rzepin on 11th March 2014. I was in the front carriage of the train, where […]