ETIAS – getting in the weeds

This White Rabbit is a complement to the blog post “ETIAS is coming…maybe” that was published on 16 August 2023. There are two sections below:

• A side-by-side comparison of the countries in the European Union, the Schengen Area, and NATO.
• A list of the sources that I consulted while writing the blog post.

Comparing the EU, Schengen Area, and NATO

While doing the research for the the blog post “ETIAS is coming…maybe”, I read a number of different articles and needed a way to illustrate the difference between the countries in the European Union and the countries who are parties to the Schengen Agreement. So I created the table below.

Once it was done I decided to add an additional column to identify which countries were also part of NATO.

Country	EU Member	Schengen Area Member	NATO Member
Number of countries	27	27	31
Albania			X
Austria	X	X
Belgium	X	X	X
Bulgaria	X		X
Croatia	X	X	X
Cyprus	X
Czechia	X	X	X
Denmark	X	X	X
Estonia	X	X	X
Finland	X	X	X
France	X	X	X
Germany	X	X	X
Greece	X	X	X
Hungary	X	X	X
Iceland		X	X
Ireland	X
Italy	X	X	X
Latvia	X	X	X
Liechtenstein		X
Lithuania	X	X	X
Luxembourg	X	X	X
Malta	X	X
Montenegro			X
Netherlands	X	X	X
North Macedonia			X
Norway		X	X
Poland	X	X	X
Portugal	X	X	X
Romania	X		X
Slovakia	X	X	X
Slovenia	X	X	X
Spain	X	X	X
Sweden	X	X
Switzerland		X

North American members of NATO: Canada, United States.

I saw some notes about the reasons why some countries were not included in the EU and the Schengen Area, but have not tried to catalogue them. Some countries intentionally opted in or out of the groups. Others were denied entry for various reasons. Most of the reasons had something to do with politics. (Surprise!)

A byproduct of this exercise was that I now have a much better understanding of the Baltic area – east of Italy, north of Greece.

Sources consulted for the ETIAS blog post

Some of these were linked in the blog post.

[1] ETIAS home page, https://etias.com/

[2] “What is the Schengen Area?”, https://etias.com/articles/what-is-the-schengen-area

[3] “Understanding the Schengen Agreement”, https://etias.com/articles/schengen-agreement

[4] List of countries required to have a Schengen visa, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:02018R1806-20210101&from=EN#tocId18

[5] “European Union – Country profiles”, https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/country-profiles_en

[6] “Nato member countries”, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_52044.htm

[7] “The E.U.’s New ETIAS Entry Requirement Is Coming. Someday.”, New York Times (gift link)

[8] “Wait, do you need a visa to go to Europe now? The new ETIAS requirements, explained”, https://www.npr.org/2023/07/27/1190453405/europe-travel-visa-etias-how-to-apply

[9] European Commission, “Migration and Home Affairs: Schengen Area”, https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/schengen-borders-and-visa/schengen-area_en

[10] “ETIAS Requirements”, https://etias.com/etias-requirements/

[11] “What will be on the ETIAS application form?”, https://etias.com/articles/what-will-be-on-the-etias-application-form

[12] European Union, “Official ETIAS website”, https://travel-europe.europa.eu/etias_en

[13[ European Union, “Frequently asked questions about ETIAS”, https://travel-europe.europa.eu/etias/faqs-etias_en

Questions? Suggestions?

Leave a comment below with any questions or suggestions. I always appreciate feedback.

Mike

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White Rabbit photo by Victor Larracuente on Unsplash