6 mo. ago • 98%

Borders are merely representations of governance

YUROP @lemm.ee Borders are merely representations of governance

48 comments

There aren’t any borders in the Schengen area which is different to the EU.

70
- Here's a simple chart showing the difference:
  
  94
  
  Damn, this is really recently updated. Romania and Bulgaria just got into Schengen last month, and they're already in the right spot on the chart.
  
  35
  
  Least complex glimpse of European institutions.
  
  33
  
  I really like this chart. It seems complex, but the upside is that your country can find exactly the level of engagement it wants.
  
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  Wow that’s insanely complicated. Also not very color blind friendly. They should put like a two letter country abbreviation below each flag.
  
  4
  
  What's that flag above Ireland that looks like an ice cream sandwich?
  
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  Nordic baltic 8
  
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  Permanently Deleted
  
  1
  
  This is your brain on state sovereignty, folks.
  
  -1
- Sure there are. There are border controls between Germany and Denmark and between Denmark and Sweden. They were supposed to be temporary, but here we are nine years later and they're still up.
  
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  Same between Austria and Slovenia and Slovenia and Croatia. Well, at least on one side. Going from Austria to Croatia, nobody will stop you, but going from Croatia to Austria, they stop you on each border. Austria took COVID as an excuse to reinstate it, and Slovenia I guess chose to be very worried about illegal immigrants.
  
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I'd love to visit Netherlands, seems like bicycle heaven...

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- I live in the Netherlands, can confirm
  
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And we all know this is the border with Belgium

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- Judging by the condition of the street it could well be Germany, too.
  
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  Dutch people famously hate on the crappy Belgian road that separate us from our vacation destinations in France.
  
  18
- It is, if you turn around on street view, the Belgian road has separated bike lanes.
  
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Akshually, those bike gutters are a bit outdated here. Many shared roads are converted to 'fietsstraat' (bike roads where cars are permitted but must yield to bikes) or markings are removed altogether and replaced with speed limiting obstacles

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- They might be outdated in cities, but on the country side a lot of the streets still look this way. Probably even more at border crossings. The only bordercrossing I haven't see like this is the main road Kleve-Nijmegen.
  
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  Yeah, I'm fairly sure if you turned this specific instance into a fietsstraat, it would just be a regular car street. Although given that this is a 60 km/h road, I do think that the next scheduled maintenance work is not unlikely to turn it into a proper separated bike lane?
  
  8
- The street is still like that, but in 2022 or 2023 they added some poles on the street to slow down the cars. The speed limit may be lowered to 50 kmh on the Dutch side, but I'm not sure. It's been a while since I've been there. The speed limit on the Belgian side is 70 kmh. The Belgian side has a separated bicycle lane but it starts behind the photographer of the original picture.
  
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- No they're not. Ga de randstad eens uit.
  
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Actually there borders, and they are called Schengen. Ireland, Romania and Bulgaria are not in Schengen. Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liecthenstein are not in the EU, but still within Schengen

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- Romania and Bulgaria joined the Schengen area not so long ago
  
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  According to all the articles i saw, its only for water and air, not land, meaning there are still borders
  
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  Nice! That was news to me.
  
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And then there is this town, which lies in both Belgium and Netherlands, and whose border is so complicated they had to paint in on the ground so people know what country they’re in.

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- I think those markings are not because you need to know in which country you are, but because they want to show their borders for a few reasons:
  
  It is cool.
  
  It shows their heritage and identity as a border town.
  
  It helps tourism.
  
  10
  
  On the contrary, you DO need to know which country you are in because of for instance a crime has been committed, it determines which country’s laws apply and which police department (they have two, a Belgian and a Dutch one) is responsible.
  
  Also, they need to know which country each house is in because that’s who gets to collect their taxes. Not sure what they do with the one house that has both Dutch and Belgian front doors however, perhaps they get to pay taxes twice for that privilege?
  
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The grass is literally greener on the other side 😯

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- The grass is certainly healthier on the closest side though.
  
  Fucking mowing grass, animals need nature.
  
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  The other side has a ditch that might be an open sewer. Those need to be mowed.
  
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Even in the land of Big Macs, 60kph seems a bit high for a road that doesn’t even have a center stripe.

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- I dunno. 60km/h is pretty much 40mph, which seems acceptable for what looks like a low density country road. On those sorts of roads the center line is sort of implied, and cars move to each side when approaching each other. I'd personally say the US plays it safe on low density road speeds. For example, there are a ton of roads like this that are a similar width to the above (despite not looking it) but have a 60mph (~100km/h) limit.
  
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- This is a 2 way road in the same Belgian village as the post. The speed limit is 70kmh.
  
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- ...you're joking right?
  
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Wasn't this picture already debunked ages ago?

The real border starts like 100m further and has a clearly defined line. And the quality of the roads is pretty decent on both sides.

I know the joke about Belgian roads being bad, it mainly has to do with Belgium being used to travel through by the surrounding countries, because we don't tax people for usage. So it all gets completely funded by the citizens actually living there.

The Netherlands roads are really quite good, but I am more in awe about their beautifully designed traffic light system. You never have to wait long, and usually don't even have to stop because it all flows so well.

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Give me a penny everytime i see this and i get rich.

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It's like going from Michigan to Ohio... I'm a Michigander and can't stand our roads. So many potholes

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- Netherlands also has a lot of potholes.
  
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I remember bringing my car over to The Netherlands after having moved there from Portugal, over 20 years ago, and it was exactly like that, only in my case it was in a major highway (so, of course, there were no cycling paths on either side of the border, but that major Belgian road was pretty much just as bad).

It's also similar in the French-Belgian border, though not quite as extreme a transition.

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Why doesn't the Netherlands paint their roads like the rest of the EU?

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