WilcoRoger

In Europe it varies by country/airport/airline - most places don't check id's, some do it as "revenue-protection" and some because "our rules are like this"

Denmark doesn't even have a national ID and passports have not been needed for intra-Nordic travel for over 60 yrs it would make.

In the 80's-90's you could pass HEL immigration by simply telling the officer "from Stockholm/Oslo/Copenhagen" in a Scandinavian language.

Blogndog

You didn't even need to do that -- the Scandinavian union countries had unified passport control long before Schengen. That in fact was one of the delays in bringing Scandinavia into Schengen -- none of them could join until all of them joined, because you couldn't have (for example) Denmark drop its border control with Germany unless Norway was agreeable.

WilcoRoger

Yes, you needed that - all international flights arrived to the same (only) terminal and therefore everyone had to pass thru immigration. Saying it in a Nordic language was important, as the passport union was for Nordic citizens only

You are equite correct, Norway and Iceland got in the Schengen area due to the Nordic passport union - it was too valuable for the other three countries to make it a deal-breaker.

GUWonder

Legally, at least one NPU country has had at least one non-Nordic language as an official language; and given that fact, a requirement to respond/communicate in a Nordic language to be considered an NPU country's citizen may be sort of inexcusable before or even now.

Technically, passports are legally required for intra-Nordic travel, with exceptions for certain categories of persons. For some of my intra-NPU travel, I'm legally required -- by governmental authorities -- to have my US passport to travel ..... and that would remain the same even for US citizens with residence status in a NPU country.

Indeed the NPU countries couldn't "fully" implement Schengen separately even as they had staggered the dates on which they signed the treaty.

WilcoRoger

Given that the NPU was (and still is) for citizens of the 5 countries only, it is not unreasonable to expect these citizens to speak the languages of said countries.

Remember, I said "you could pass" not "it was a requirement" - it was up to the officers at the border to decide if it was enough that one declared having arrived from STO or if they needed some other proof (which could be quite time consuming to get, given that one had no obligation to have a boarding pass at the immigration desk). If the pax could not state his origin in a Nordic language, I think it would have given them reason to suspect that said pax was not a Nordic citizen arriving from a NPU country.

But this is history now.

Finnish is a Nordic language (but not Scandinavian)

NPU is for meant for the citizens of member countries. Even today, you (US citizen) are required to carry a passport going from CPH to MMX. A Dane or Swede is not.

GUWonder

Some non-Nordic (which includes non-Scandinavian) languages have for centuries been the minority languages of citizens in areas within the NPU; and that would include Romani chib and Yiddish, neither languages of which are understood by most NPU citizens.

In this day and age, I consider it even more unreasonable (than even before) for border control types to generally expect that all citizens of a country speak the mother tongue language of the majority of a country of which they are a citizen and do so with a sort of "native" accent.

By the way, what you mention about something being history is still sort of taking place -- what sometimes still takes place is the following: being asked and being able to answer in a national majority language in the region working as a sort of pass for international intra-NPU travel without a passport or other form of national ID. At least at land crossings sometimes.

I consider it unfortunate that the NPU mobility elements weren't applicable regardless of citizenship for persons in the NPU countries even Pre-Schengen -- that's my opinion about it, as the aspect of the arrangement being limited to citizens of the NPU countries embedded a basis exploited for ethnic discrimination in the course of intra-NPU international travel even for persons not required to have passports/ID for such travel.

WilcoRoger

C'mon, don't look for demons ("discrimination") everywhere.

These 5 countries agreed to basically open their territory for each others' citizens (not just border crossing, but in areas of residence, work, citizenship) It's not discrimination to not include third (or sixth) country citizens in this arrangement.

If you are a born citizen of these countries, it is not far fetched to suppose you do speak the language of your country. If you were naturalized, you had to pass a language proficiency test.

Romani and Yiddish are not official tongues in any of these countries (AFAIK) - Sami is, at least in Lapland. Now in the 50's (60-90's) the number of international flights to Lapland were neglible so there was no chance that pax from Luleå would mingle with pax from London at let's say Rovaniemi. When the Luleå flight landed, there was no immigration. When the London charter landed a day later, there was.

So the "discrimination" could in theory happen at HEL only if 1) a Nordic citizen 2) arriving from the NPU region 3) without any form of identification [incl. ticket stub, boarding pass] would have been unable to state his/her flight's origin 4) in a Nordic language in which case (s)he would have probably been asked for further clarification - which is still not discrimination, just establishing that said pax was indeed eligible for travel without documents.

Mind, it's 1 AND 2 AND 3 AND 4

As for today's land-crossing within the NPU - who on Earth asks any questions? I admit, that I don't do much of this, but never seen any immigration official at any of these borders - as there haven't been any for the last 60 years or so.

GUWonder

There are some minor demons arising in practice out of such policies too.

It's lawful discrimination but still discrimination to allow citizens but not non-citizen residents of the area to move internationally without ID in the region.

It is far-fetched given a substantial chunk of natural-born citizens of NPU countries are born outside of NPU countries and don't speak more than the language of their actual country of birth.

By the way, language proficiency test is not a requirement for naturalization across all NPU countries. Nor should it be where it is, but then again I've never been a fan of state's having official languages prescribed by law.

Not familiar enough with Sweden? It seems so again. [Reference to Sweden naturalizing citizens who don't speak Swedish.] Romani and Yiddish are officially recognized as national minority languages in Sweden. Some others are also recognized as that, Sami included.

The discrimination in terms of intra-NPU international travel -- or in terms of international arrival into the NPU area -- involving Finland has not been limited to HEL even in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s or 1990s.

There has been immigration enforcement at cross-border surface transport junctions within the NPU and questions get asked by those working for the national enforcement agencies. I do a lot of international surface travel between at least three NPU countries and have seen this take place repeatedly even as it's infrequently observed by most -- and I'm not talking about customs checks which are even more frequently enforced at these intra-NPU cross-border surface transport junctions. This is more commonly noticed and experienced by people who are, or are related to many of those who are, in at least some part of non-European ethnic backgrounds and more frequently travel in travel parties that are more diverse than is the historical norm for the region in say the pre-NPU era.

I can't comment about the Finnish-Scandinavia surface crossings in recent years -- I only fly for those trips, so far in recent decades -- but my surface transport cross-border experiences inside the NPU are otherwise rather extensive over many decades.

cbn42

I would say it's still discrimination. It's well-intentioned and practical, but it meets the definition of the word. People who were similarly positioned were treated differently based on the way they spoke. A person might have had to submit to further questioning because of their accent. That is discrimination.

WilcoRoger

You're quite right here, I forgot about this group.

Guilty as charged For the record your reference was to official language, which is not the same as minority language.

True, but outside HEL you had practically zero chance of arriving pax from NPU and non-NPU origins to mingle, due to the simple fact that int'l flights to those airports were rare and far between. NPU arrivals were met with no passport controll, no matter of nationality.

I remember my very first trip to Stockholm from Helsinki on the ferry when I caused considerably confusion at the Swedish side by finding a customs agent (anyone in uniform) and demanding a stamp in my passport.

Your comments are interesting - admittedly I only did CPH-MMX crossing on the bridge (and earlier on those small ferries) but experienced none of it. FI-SE and FI-NO are completely open crossings, there is only a sign by the road with the name of the respective country you're entering. Ferry crossings are similar. Customs used to do some random checks when the Fx rate was good for some cross border trading, though.

WilcoRoger

In practical terms, how many of the pax do you think might have been involved?

A Nordic citizen, unable to utter 1 or 2 words in a Nordic language ("Tukholmasta" or "fra Stockholm"), unable to produce any documentation (ID, passport, ticket stub, b/p).

We can theorize on the definition of discrimination, but in my opinion it would be a waste of bit and bytes in this context.

GUWonder seems to hold the opinion that it's discrimination against non-Nordic citizens, that they need to carry passport/ID. So be it. Just as it is a discrimination that I have an unalienable right to enter the EU while he hasn't (as US citizen) and vice versa I have no such right to the US while he has.

GUWonder

Trying to line up my following paragraphs to be responses to your paragraphs above -- but I'm potentially tired enough to have gotten that off by a bit. Here goes:

1. Official languages include official national minority languages, recognized by the state as such, although I can see how the reference could be confusing.

2. Outside of HEL, people also arrived at ports of entry where mixed arrivals took place. Water crossings, for example. Also, there were airports and other ports in Finland beside HEL where passengers from beyond and within the NPU arrived in the era between 1958 and 2002, sometimes in rather close coordination time-wise. I won't go into some of the details about post-war refugee resettlement back into Finland but it's been an interesting history for some that sparked some interest in looking at how national ports of entry have been staffed and or available/not available.

3. About customs at Stockholm, Swedish Tull/Customs has not always been on duty and exercising their authority to check one and all, but they have had people assigned there for ports for as long as there has been an NPU. A relative lack of a common customs union and common excise-like tax application practices for much or the post-1958 period has resulted in some level of customs enforcement prioritization that had at least sporadic yet recurring enforcement for the entire period since at least 1958. I've seen it for boats coming from FI to SE too. Not common, but it does happen -- for customs and separately sometimes for immigration control.

4. I've crossed between CPH and Sweden at least several hundred times over some decades -- not as much as the daily commuters resident around one or both sides of the area but more than even most of those citizens of the area who cross at least a few times a month for much of their lives. Sometimes I have even done the crossings four or five or more times a day -- more so after the bridge opened,; and more so after the Danish government decided bridge travel was troublesome for them; and then even more so after the Swedish government got more paranoid about gun and drug running from Denmark into Sweden after the Danish authorities had backed off on Sweden-departing traffic entering Denmark. [Sort of ironic given how used Finnish-sold/transported weapons are far cheaper for Swedish illicit purchases than used Danish-sold/transported illegal weapons -- speaks to the large number of firearms in private possession in Finland.] As I noted earlier, experiences vary based on ethnic appearance at least in some part. If you were a law-abiding ethnic Nordic Roma citizen or watched out for such people (who have an awful history of being discriminated against by authorities in Europe and in the NPU countries), then perhaps you'd notice the recurring discrimination hitting non-citizen residents, foreign visitors but also even NPU country citizens who happen to not fit some storybook ethnic stereotypical looks for national majority populations in the NPU countries.

GUWonder

There is also discrimination by authorities based on how people look, even when the passengers are citizens of the same country as the authorities and those natural-born NPU country citizens speak the local dialect of the official language of the national majority in their NPU country. I have relatives of mixed ethnic backgrounds with the same DNA line as that of an indigenous formerly ruling family in the area and yet such relatives who happen to be natural-born NPU country citizens (speaking local dialects) are more likely to have their passports examined than ethnic Italian citizens of Argentina with no provable local heritage and who happen to understand less (if anything) in Scandinavian languages than those NPU country citizens. It's rather funny (in a sad way).

WilcoRoger

Yes, we have the (dubious) distinction of being the world's third most armed nation after the US and Yemen. The strange thing is that in spite of this we are rather low on the firearm violence statistics - just 17% of murders (or whatever is the generic term for taking anoher person's life) involve firearms - about 20 a year. But we are special

jeff191

This was for an international flight, but a few weeks back leaving PRG for JFK, ID got checked 5 times. Most I've ever had at a single airport. Once in the check in line by airline employee along with questions about luggage, very thorough. She then waived us over to counter where they checked again and printed boarding passes. 3rd time was I assume immigration official, he stamped passports. 4th time was at gate where security screening was and 5th time was immediately after security. Basically we left security screening and immediately lined up again for airline employee who asked exact same list of questions as 1st ID check. This was before we could get to seats at gate.

So 3 times by airline employees and twice by security/govt. Not a huge deal, just seemed like a lot of wasted resources. The first check before check in and final check after security seemed superfluous since we were still in the same line each time.

I was pleasantly surprised when leaving AMS to PRG, 1 scan of my passport and it printed boarding pass. Then no ID checks after, at first it felt weird, but it was very convenient.