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Comment by fred2133 | Hacker News Reader

Free movement of goods, labour and capital. Miss out one and you don't have a free market, you're just being scammed.

And that’s what makes the huge difference between Schengen and free trade agreements like TTIP. (If one ignores the protection part of TTIP)

Schengen is for citizens only. If you are third-country national who is a permanent resident of a Schengen country, with an unlimited right to work, you have exactly ZERO right to live or work in any other Schengen country. Sure, you can travel by land without having your passport checked, but that's as far as it goes.

The European Union is a Union until you need it to behave like one, and then it isn't.

Isn't Schengen only about passportless travel? I thought it didn't have anything to do with right to work?

As always, with the EU, it’s complicated, but often the "free to work, live and retire everywhere in the EU" is considered part of Schengen.

Is it? Then how come Romanian and Bulgarian citizens get the same rights without being in Schengen? Or don't they?

You are correct. The main pillar of the European Union is the common market including the free movement of goods, capital and people.

Schengen was originally a treaty outside of the framework of the EU but has since been taken over by it. There are EU countries outside of Schengen (GB, Ireland) and there are non-EU countries part of Schengen (e.g. Norway, Vatican, Switzerland). However all countries that join the EU now eventually have to join the Schengen area.

Besides Visa free travel for residents of these countries Schengen also includes a common Visa for foreigners traveling to these countries (so you only need one Visa to to travel to France and Germany) and allows the police to cross the border when perusing suspects and detain them on the other side.

Thanks for the explanation!

As I said, with the EU everything has special cases and exceptions.

Yeah, it's more complicated than I thought...

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