Fanfare for bigger border-free EU ( this information is from BBC news site) Passport-free The enlargement will allow passport-free travel throughout the area, although travellers can be asked to carry documents by any of the countries concerned. For non-EU nationals, a Schengen visa allows travel across all the participating countries. Thirteen existing EU states have already been part of the Schengen accord as well as two non-EU countries, Norway and Iceland. The UK and Ireland are not involved in the passport-free zone but they have signed up to agreements on security. A significant element of the Schengen agreement is the Schengen Information Service (SIS) which features an enormous database in the French city of Strasbourg. The SIS database enables police in any Schengen state to find out whether a suspect has been involved in any kind of crime across the EU.
