European Union and Travel Implications

The European Union (EU) has created a unique area of free movement of goods, services, and persons. Travel and tourism, originally merely aspects of the free movement of persons, have been addressed in exclusive sections and given specific powers in recent consolidations of the EU’s legal framework. European travel and tourism have been strongly facilitated by complex and ongoing processes and provisions of European coordination in two main policy areas: a visa policy based on the Schengen Agreement, and a European common currency established in the form of the euro.

The EU’s double aim of widening the circle of its members while deepening their collaboration lets the EU consider amplifying its currency zone and adding to its visa program, while at the same time strengthening its ...