Except inside the Schengen Area. Every time I travel I realize how lucky I am to have this freedom (and wary of political movements trying to kill it).
This. Every time I travel within Schengen it's so easy. And when I need to move for work too. I spent about 30m at a government facility in the exiting country to unregister and another 30 at the entering country to get the equivalent of my social security number. Most of this can even be done over the internet.
It doesn't make sense to compare going from France to Germany with going from France to the US. A better comparison would be France to Germany vs. California to Arizona.
Both European states and US states are sovereign political entities with their own laws and territory, but with an agreement for freedom of movement. (the US constitution in one case; the Schengen agreement in the other).
The affirmation that US states are sovereign is not unanimously agreed upon :)
That said, even if that's technically true, I think it blurs the history, which is part of what makes it feel special. An US citizen takes that border crossing for granted since birth, but as an European, I'm aware that my grandmother already as an adult had to cross it clandestinely, at the risk of her own life, and even my parents still had to pass through customs and declare the purpose of their trip. I'm the first generation of my family for whom crossing the border is truly a free experience.
Whatever the current level of integration within the EU, it is far from being anything like a federal state, so isn't a valid comparison. The closest equivalent you'd get is US to Canada.
Indeed. Try showing up at the US border and explaining you're going to work without a permit but it's OK since you're being paid via Mexico with two currency conversions. I get that the experience was unnecessarily unpleasant but c'mon.
Except inside the Schengen Area. Every time I travel I realize how lucky I am to have this freedom (and wary of political movements trying to kill it).
This. Every time I travel within Schengen it's so easy. And when I need to move for work too. I spent about 30m at a government facility in the exiting country to unregister and another 30 at the entering country to get the equivalent of my social security number. Most of this can even be done over the internet.
It doesn't make sense to compare going from France to Germany with going from France to the US. A better comparison would be France to Germany vs. California to Arizona.
Both European states and US states are sovereign political entities with their own laws and territory, but with an agreement for freedom of movement. (the US constitution in one case; the Schengen agreement in the other).
The affirmation that US states are sovereign is not unanimously agreed upon :)
That said, even if that's technically true, I think it blurs the history, which is part of what makes it feel special. An US citizen takes that border crossing for granted since birth, but as an European, I'm aware that my grandmother already as an adult had to cross it clandestinely, at the risk of her own life, and even my parents still had to pass through customs and declare the purpose of their trip. I'm the first generation of my family for whom crossing the border is truly a free experience.
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Whatever the current level of integration within the EU, it is far from being anything like a federal state, so isn't a valid comparison. The closest equivalent you'd get is US to Canada.
Indeed. Try showing up at the US border and explaining you're going to work without a permit but it's OK since you're being paid via Mexico with two currency conversions. I get that the experience was unnecessarily unpleasant but c'mon.