Although proceedures still have slight variations from airport to airport, the basic idea is that if you travel between Schengen countries (not all EU countries have signed up to the Schengen treaty yet, and some non-EU members - Norway and Iceland - have), you can travel without checks or controls. Airports have gradually adapted by assigning separate Schengen through-ways, separate from international controls. In essense traveling between Schengen coutnries is for practical purposes the same as traveling domestic. Here is a quote from the link I mention firther down:
"Citizens of countries implementing the Schengen Agreement can cross the internal borders of the implementing countries at any point without checks."
Even for non-Schengen EU countries though, passport controls have for many years now tended to be very lax. One of the basic premises of the EU is freedom of movement, so when they see an EU passport they usually just wave you through.
If you would like to see some more details of the basic Schengen provisions, check
http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/www/e.../schengen_html
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by tfung:
I had noticed the past few times while going through immigration in European countries, were that many people just held up their passports and said which country they were coming from, and the immigration officers would just wave them through. I suspect that they're EU nationals or citizens of that country. Since I'm have a EU passport, I always wanted to try it myself, but didn't want to get stopped and asked what the hell I was trying to pull. I always give the passport to the officials to be inspected and stamped. Anyone want to give me some insight? </font>
[This message has been edited by SK (edited 06-18-2001).]