Five Countries Sign the Schengen Agreement

On 14 June 1985, representatives of five European nations met aboard the passenger ship MS Princesse Marie-Astrid, anchored on the river Moselle near the town of Schengen, Luxembourg. The location rested at the tripoint where the frontiers of France, West Germany, and Luxembourg converged. The five nations signing the accord, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany, represented half of the ten member states then comprising the European Economic Community. Together, they concluded an agreement to pursue the gradual abolition of internal checks across their shared borders.

The broader principle of free movement had been established in the founding Treaty of Rome, permitting nationals of member states to travel across internal frontiers upon presenting passports or identity cards. Systematic border controls, however, remained an everyday obstacle to interstate transit throughout Western Europe. Three of the five signatories, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, had already abolished mutual frontier inspections in 1970 under the framework of the Benelux Economic Union. When the wider Community reached an impasse over dismantling controls, the five nations chose to proceed independently.