I’ve recently returned from a tour of Europe, and was fascinated by the lack of border security. Of course, there are 24 countries in continental Europe (part of the Schengen Agreement) that have abolished formal border controls. Many of the countries I visited were in this Schengen zone; however, the United Kingdom and Switzerland are not. So on my trip, I crossed “hard” borders four times and my passport was checked at only one of them. Crossing into France from the UK, the bus was “waived” through immigration. Leaving the European Union and entering Switzerland, the bus driver merely paid a toll and we kept on driving. Re-entering the EU in Austria was much the same. It was not until we got back to the UK that a passport check occurred.

I found this interesting, as I had recently attended a talk given by the Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. At this talk, in response to a question, the Ambassador said that the setup of European borders would make sense for the US and Canada (somewhat obviously so, given we share the longest common border in the world). Given that the border is basically undefended, it seems a little bit silly that we are increasing border crossing documentation requirements, while Europe is breaking them down.

I am a strong supporter of a country’s sovereignty. The UK has maintained strict border controls with the rest of Europe while entering the EU; this probably makes sense for an island with terrorism concerns. However, I am not convinced it really makes sense for the US and Canada to devote resources to our shared border (in terms of increased documentation requirements) when many parts of the border are not patrolled. This sort of policy track can lead to situations like the Northwest Angle, which I’m sure you’ll agree, is a bit ridiculous.

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