Talk:European Union/Archive 2003-2012

I know that there's no "I". Nevertheless, I'm not sure about visas and wanted to remark that.

I tend to think that you should just say what you think, and someone else will correct you if you're wrong.

http://europa.eu.int/abc/travel/doc/index_en.htm

Anyways, the joke in my comment is based on a motivational chestnut in English: "There is no 'I' in 'team'." The point being that you need to think about the team first, and the self second. (Yes, it's a pretty spooky phrase, isn't it? Destroying the self.)

Anyways, I was taking out the 1st-personisms in EU, and I thought of the phrase, and then I thought: "There is no 'I' in 'wiki'" was funny, because there are a lot of i's in "wiki".

--(WT-en) Evan 10:59, 6 Dec 2003 (PST)

OK. That's the point with good jokes. Stupid reader need an explanation ;-) -- (WT-en) Hansm 01:43, 2003 Dec 7 (PST)

Schengen Agreement

I've included the following in the article about Germany:

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Germany is a member of the European Union and the Schengen Agreement. European visa policy will be covered in the article about the EU. In brief, a visa to any other signatory state of the Schengen Agreement is valid in Germany too. No visa is required for citizens of other EU member states, and those of some selected nations with whom the European Union or Germany have special treaties. Inquire at your travel agent or call the local consulate or embassy of Germany.

Also, there are no border controls between Germany and other Schengen Agreement nations, making travel less complicated.

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If you replace Germany with $localcountry and edit the bit about EU membership, this may make a good paragraph to include in all EU and/or Schengen Agreement signatory countries. Before we spread it out, however, someone else should have a look and edit it. -- (WT-en) Nils 14:59, 13 Apr 2004 (EDT)

I'm not 100% sure about this, but I think border controls are still not completely out of the question. I think that sometimes there are between France and Belgium to limit drug trafficking. But I'd like some other opinion about this. (WT-en) Akubra 15:35, 13 Apr 2004 (EDT)

Border controls have indeed gone from borders between Schengen countries. The Schengen countries are the 15 EU member states except the UK and Republic of Ireland, plus Norway and Iceland. The UK and Republic have their own free movement treaty along similar lines for travel between the two states. (WT-en) Professorbiscuit

OK, I must have confused it with the (supposed) Franco-Belgian police cooperation in border areas. (WT-en) Akubra 15:54, 13 Apr 2004 (EDT)

Don't confuse "no border controls" with "not allowed to make controls". Of course the police can stop you and search your car for drugs if they follow established legal procedure. Also, for example, on my recent flight from Paris to Frankfurt the airline checked passports as a "security measure" when boarding the plane. But that is general paranoia, and since the tickets are for a specific person I guess it's their right to see if you really are who you claim to be. Anyway, the point is, there are no border controls that really warrant such a name. So is the paragraph as it stands okay? -- (WT-en) Nils 01:04, 14 Apr 2004 (EDT)

The Schengen agreement is made to lift the compulsory borders controls and mostly to have a single visa stamp for nationals of non EU countries. This is why for instance a Brazilian national can enter Portugal with a Schengen visa, travel freely to France, but cannot enter the non-Schengen UK. It does not mean that borders may never be checked. There are often border controls between Schengen countries: Spain/Portugal, Spain/France, Belgium/France. If you travel by train from Germany to Holland, you may have a passport control done by Dutch border policemen, while the train is crossing the German/Dutch border without stopping. This is meant to look for criminals, illegals and drug trafficking. Also, the Schengen visa is valid for traveling, not for emigration. Ex: An Argentine living legally in Spain, with a valid residence/working permit, is allowed to travel through all the other Schengen countries but cannot work in Schengen countries other than Spain.

Cyprus

I don't think we can say that only Greek Cyprus is a member state. Officially, the whole of Cyprus is. Of course, practically, as a result of the recent referendum, it's a complete other thing. That's why I included the note. It's the same as in Wikipedia, but those are my exact words (I'm still Dhum Dhum there). (WT-en) Akubra 15:58, 3 May 2004 (EDT)

Yes, I agree with that. Remember, though, that we're a tourist guide not a political encyclopedia, so therefore this article discusses about the effect of the EU on travellers. And that effect (EU laws) only apply to Greek Cyprus. But, anyway, we also need to be politically-correct, and I agree that the best way of doing this is listing Cyprus as a member state, and then including the note. That way, we get the "best of both worlds". (WT-en) Ronline 20:06, 3 May 2004 (EDT)

EU Eurozone and Shengen

So we've got three groups -- European Union, countries that use the Euro, and the Schengen Agreement countries that have some sort of common visa setup. They overlap heavily, of course, but my understanding is that no two are exactly the same. UK is in EU but does not use Euro, Norway is in Schengen but not an EU member, and so on.

Do we need three maps? Or one map showing how they overlap? Or maybe a table, countries down the left and three columns for status?

Should we have a Schengen or Schengen Agreement page? Separate,or just redirecting here? (WT-en) Pashley 09:12, 1 January 2008 (EST)

I created an HTML table for this data, see User talk:(WT-en) Pashley/Playpen. Is it up to date? I just took data from existing article. Is there a better way? Wiki table? Or can someone do a map? If there's nothing better, maybe move the table into the article? (WT-en) Pashley 10:11, 1 January 2008 (EST)

I think it might now be up to date. I did a little web searching, found various countries joined Schengen Jan 1 2008, so table is now more up to date than the article. (WT-en) Pashley 10:33, 3 January 2008 (EST)

No comment, so I added the table in the "understand" section.(WT-en) Pashley 08:19, 22 January 2008 (EST)

I'd actually like to merge the European Union article back into Europe -- at the moment there's really heavy overlap. (WT-en) Jpatokal 22:26, 17 April 2008 (EDT)

No objection at all to removing the overlap. I'm not sure if the best way to do that is put all the details in the Europe article, or have then on a separate page that Europe links to. (WT-en) Pashley 02:47, 18 April 2008 (EDT)

Common cents

Re "cents" vs "cent", Wikipedia quotes that For English language texts, however, there is a recommendation from the Directorate-General for Translation, the EU's translation service, that the natural plurals 'euros' and 'cents' should be used in non-legal documents intended for the general public. See wikipedia:Linguistic issues concerning the euro. (WT-en) Jpatokal 22:25, 17 April 2008 (EDT)