Originally Posted by
Aviatrix
Denmark did not join Schengen at the very beginning, and the "irrelevant" fact that it is part of Scandinavia is in fact the very reason it wasn't able to join Schengen from Day 1!
Long before Schengen there was the Nordic Common Travel Area (established in the 1950s) - which included a non-EU member state, Norway. It was Norway's membership in the Nordic Common Travel Area which delayed Denmark's entry into Schengen - the Nordic countries did not implement the Schengen Agreement until 2001.
Perfectly right. And the Nordic Passport Union (as it is officially called) allows travel in all Nordic (not: Scandinavian) countries without any border controlls since 1954.
The Nordic Passport Union involves not only five currencies but five countries and three territories:
- one Euro and EU-member state (Finland),
- two more EU-memberstates not accounting in Euro (Danmark, Sweden),
- two non-EU memberstates (Iceland and Norway),
- one territory linked with an EU member state and belonging to the EU and accounting in Euro (Aland)
- two territories linked with an EU member state but not belonging to the EU (Greenland and Føroyar).
Difficult enough?
Scandinavia itself only consists of Sweden, Norway and (with certain geographical doubts) Danmark (it is not on the Scandinavian Peninsula)