History

The Schengen Agreement was signed in 1985 in the small Luxemburg town named Schengen, before the creation of the Schengen area on March 26th, 1995. This immense area, sheltering more than 400 million inhabitants for about 4 million square kilometers, has been including 26 European States since 2013. It allows the free circulation of goods, people and capitals, and it abolishes identity controls at the border between member states.
At the beginning in 1985, only 5 States signed the treaty: Germany, Belgium, France, Luxemburg, The Netherlands.

Then other countries have entered the area :
Italy (1990), Greece (1992), Portugal (1992), Spain (1992), Austria (1995), Denmark (1996), Iceland (1996), Norway (1996), Finland (1996), Sweden (1996), Hungary (2004), Poland (2004),    Latvia (2004), Czech Republic (2004),   Slovakia (2004), Estonia (2004), Lithuania (2004), Slovenia (2004), Malta (2004), Liechtenstein (2008), Switzerland (2008).

This area is so attractive that other countries have been waiting for entering the Schengen area such as Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia and Romania. However, there are countries such as England and Ireland which are in the European Union but not in the Schengen area.