I'm mid fourties and I remember bordercrossings were annoying back in the 90ies. I'm Danish so we didn't enter Schengen until around 2000. I guess it didn't help that I was young enough that we traveled by bus. Once when we were on a school trip to Prauge we had the Slovakia borderpatrol go through our entire bus while waving machineguns around.

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petre 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> we had the Slovakia borderpatrol go through our entire bus while waving machineguns around

Quite common in Eastern Europe before Schengen. That's why we hate border patrols, police and all sorts of uniformed men in general. They used to cut young people's blue jeans or long hair back in the '80s and bribing them was common before 2005. We also had quite a lot of policemen jokes (they were called militia men before 1990). One goes like "Why do militia men work in couples? Because one knows how to read and the other knows how to write.". I used to wish that we join Schengen so we no longer have to deal with border police any longer and they'd lose their jobs or get moved to a different border. If finally happened. Now Germany Poland, Austria and also other EU states introduce "temporary" border checks. Which they keep extending. Great.

	▲	tmtvl 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I thought they worked in groups of 3: one knows how to write, the second knows how to read, and the third is there to keep an eye on the dangerous intellectuals.
	▲	tpm a day ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> Now Germany Poland, Austria and also other EU states introduce "temporary" border checks. Which they keep extending. Great. Yeah. Though I live close to a Slovakia-Austria border crossing and use it frequently and it is quite apparent these are border checks in the name only. Pedestrians and bikers are not checked at all; passenger cars are waved through and only vans and busses seem to be actually stopped for a check and even that depends. Still sucks compared to no border police presence at all.
	▲	2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

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afiori 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Germany still does this, to a good fraction of incoming long distance busses (but not trains IIUC)

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bluebarbet 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Correct, and not just Germany. I have travelled all over Europe by bus and train. In recent years borders have been making a comeback, despite Schengen. Buses are target number 1 for border police.

Last year my bus took nearly an hour to get across the Serbia-Croatia border, which is technically a Schengen border, but Serbia is surrounded by Europe so security is usually lax. We all had to get off and go through passport control while the police combed the bus. Meanwhile, car traffic was being waved through without the slightest formality. Infuriating.

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gpvos 2 days ago | parent [-]

The Serbia-Croatia border is definitely not a Schengen border; I assume that was a typo.

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a day ago | parent | next [-]

[deleted]

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bluebarbet a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Indeed. Typo. Too late to fix.

	▲	bluebarbet 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Wait! It was not a typo. Serbia-Croatia is indeed a Schengen border (Croatia is in Schengen). My point was that there was anti-bus discrimination even at this low-security border. At the supposed non-borders within the Schengen zone, police are increasingly present. Often they get on buses (and trains) just to check out the passengers, obviously looking for passengers with migrant profiles. Two or three years ago I crossed the ultra-low-security Germany-Denmark border on a local bus. There was no border security but I overheard the driver making an intentional phone call to someone to say that he had a foreign tourist aboard. Schengen has not completely abolished borders, alas.

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eru 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Btw, long distance busses have a really strange history in Germany.

The literal Nazis made a law that virtually banned long distance busses inside of Germany, and the market was only liberalised in 2013. Deregulation and liberalisation often get a bad rep, but they have done a lot for us.

(To be more precise, the Nazis didn't outright ban long distance busses directly, what they did was give the government railway monopoly a veto over most bus routes and lots of extra restrictions. Which amounted to the same result as a ban. Just like the US doesn't directly ban buying from the world's most popular electric car brand or importing photovoltaic cells: they just slap outrageous 100%+ tariffs on them.)