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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

> The number of Africans who would prefer to live in Kenya is enormous.

Visa-free travel doesn't mean you can (legally) live/work there, though.

It seems that that’s the goal though:

> According to the African Union's website, the African Passport and free movement of people are intended to "remove restrictions on Africans ability to travel, work, and live within their own continent."

> The African Union also established the African Continental Free Trade Area, a free trade area spanning the whole continent with an estimated value of $3.4 trillion. Its goals are to promote economic growth and provide a single, united market for the 1.3 billion people living on the continent.

Sounds like EU.

AU definitely has goals that bring it closer to the EU. Time will tell how well they do. In many ways it's a similar problem: 1/ big and small countries, 2/ lots of land on a full continent, 3/ major differences (languages, which side of the road people drive on, GDP, government stability, etc...), 4/ value from working together.

The EU has all of those problems as well (UK, IE, MT are right-hand drive) and its been a success in my opinion. I'm not sure if the AU is ready to go as deep as common currency. A unified trading block makes trading with larger nations a lot more even.

The EU has two separate provisions:

- The Schengen agreement, i.e. no border controls between countries

- The fundamental right to free movement for citizens of the EU.

There are countries where Schengen applies (you can go without visa or with the same visa as the rest of the EU, there is no border control for people normally), but there is no right to live there automatically (Switzerland).

There are countries without Schengen so there are border checks, and the visa system for foreigners is separate, but EU citizens still have the right to live there (Ireland).

Switzerland isn't in EU.

Did I say that Switzerland is in the EU? It is in the Schengen agreement (which managed by the EU and part of EU law, but also extends to other countries).

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