Europe query

[BensGrandad]

I can understand the problems with Ulloa and his passport as he is not European but can somebody explain why, with the supposed freedom of movement etc a person born and bred in the Uk of UK parents needs to have a passport for them and their children to go to Spain or Italy for a holiday. Surely proof of nationality like a birth certificate should suffice.

I realize that it is the law but isnt the law wrong and the charge of £80 should not be enforceable under EU laws as we were originally led to believe.

 

[Aseros]

You don't need a passport. You can use many forms of ID to travel within Europe, it's just the passport is the easiest to use.

 

[clippedgull]

I can see where you are coming from, it's a legal scam.

Here is your answer:

No passport is needed when traveling between the following countries: Portugal, Spain, France, Luxemburg, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland (from 2009), Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Greece, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. I believe that Malta and Cyprus both remain outside of the passport-free (Schengen) Zone for now. The UK and Ireland are also not part of this arrangement.

The above countries have abolished border controls at their borders.

However all of the above countries require people to hold some kind of identification (driving license, passport, national ID card, etc.) and this is almost always needed when checking into hotels or boarding flights (national, intra-EU, international).

 

[soistes]

You don't need a passport. You can use many forms of ID to travel within Europe, it's just the passport is the easiest to use.

I think its because the UK chose not to sign up to the Schengen agreement within the EU. So you can move between many EU countries (e.g. from France to Belgium, or Belgium to Holland) without a passport or even without an immigration check at all, but the UK wanted to keep border control, so if you're going from the UK to those places you need a passport (if we had identity cards like some countries you could use those). It's not to do with being British, it's to do with going in and out of the UK -- so for example a British person can move between France and Spain or wherever without showing a passport, but they'll need the passport whenever they cross the UK border in either direction.

 

[Rugrat]

Hasn't he now got a Spanish passport (and dual nationality), thought that was what he was waiting for?

 

[Boys 9d]

The Schengen countries do at times re-impose border controls in certain circumstances eg: Terror alerts. I have been stopped at the Spanish/French border following a Basque Terrorist incident and also the Dutch/German border when travelling by coach (reason unknown).

 

[BensGrandad]

Hasn't he now got a Spanish passport (and dual nationality), thought that was what he was waiting for?

Yes he has but I was just using him as an example of somebody who is not a uk citizen. A friend of my sons has never been abroad but wants to go with her sister, both divorced, and take their children for a holiday Spain but it is going to cost them £80 each fora passport for them and their 6 children ie 8 people in all £640 for something which I think they should not need. So what people are saying on here is that we are part of Europe when it suits but not when it doesn't and are not tied to all the legislation.

 

[Rugrat]

Yes he has but I was just using him as an example of somebody who is not a uk citizen. A friend of my sons has never been abroad but wants to go with her sister, both divorced, and take their children for a holiday Spain but it is going to cost them £80 each fora passport for them and their 6 children ie 8 people in all £640 for something which I think they should not need. So what people are saying on here is that we are part of Europe when it suits but not when it doesn't and are not tied to all the legislation.

OK got ya

 

[soistes]

Yes he has but I was just using him as an example of somebody who is not a uk citizen. A friend of my sons has never been abroad but wants to go with her sister, both divorced, and take their children for a holiday Spain but it is going to cost them £80 each fora passport for them and their 6 children ie 8 people in all £640 for something which I think they should not need. So what people are saying on here is that we are part of Europe when it suits but not when it doesn't and are not tied to all the legislation.

You're right, but this is entirely the decision of the UK government which chose to opt out of the Schengen agreement. If we were part of it, then you could come and go between the UK and Spain (or between the UK and other EU countries) without a passport and without having to fork out the £80. It's a classic example of this pick and choose approach to being part of Europe, which is going to get worse if Cameron pursues his approach of regenotiating all the bits of the EU treaties that don't appeal to him

 

[BensGrandad]

Will this aspect of our being in Europe be made known, I doubt it very much. When we had the referendum initially as to whether or not to join this was a point that was made that we would not need a passport to move around Europe. I would suggest a lot of people voted yes based partly on that point.

 

[El Sid]

I voted to enter the EU because I was unhappy with the shape of the bananas entering the UK.

 

[beorhthelm]

its because the UK is not part of the Schengen Agreement which waves passport requirements. this is seperate from the EU.

 

[Cadiz Seagull]

UK doesn't have an official ID card with photo.

Spain and other European countries do so their nationals can travel on that within Europe without getting a passport.

UK birth certificates don't have photos so you need a passport to go travel abroad.

 

[clippedgull]

Yes he has but I was just using him as an example of somebody who is not a uk citizen. A friend of my sons has never been abroad but wants to go with her sister, both divorced, and take their children for a holiday Spain but it is going to cost them £80 each fora passport for them and their 6 children ie 8 people in all £640 for something which I think they should not need. So what people are saying on here is that we are part of Europe when it suits but not when it doesn't and are not tied to all the legislation.

Childrens passports are not £80 so there is a saving straight away.

 

[Aseros]

Either way, the intention of 'free passage' throughout the EU wasn't intended for tourists. That part of the EU was intended for people who wish to work in other countries which they can do.

 

[upthealbion1970]

Childrens passports are not £80 so there is a saving straight away.

Think our son's passport was about £50 last year

 

[clippedgull]

Think our son's passport was about £50 last year

Yeah £46 for a child £72.50 for an adult for standard ten year passports.

 

[BensGrandad]

Sons mate told me it was £80 each so I accepted that as I didn't know having no need to buy one.

 

[Seagull on the wing]

its because the UK is not part of the Schengen Agreement which waves passport requirements. this is seperate from the EU.

....so that explains why we have to show a passport to go into France and anybody in the EU can walk into the UK.....how about the EU coming British coastal waters and fishing but as soon as our fishermen go onto the French razorfish shoals they kick up blue murder....all seems a bit one sided to me.

 

[BensGrandad]

....so that explains why we have to show a passport to go into France and anybody in the EU can walk into the UK.....how about the EU coming British coastal waters and fishing but as soon as our fishermen go onto the French razorfish shoals they kick up blue murder....all seems a bit one sided to me.

For a short while wife and I ran The Albion at Fishersgate and many times the foreign fishing boats we so near the coast that we could read their names and registation numbers etc.