Special Eurobarometer 474: The Schengen Area

The Special Eurobarometer survey was commissioned by the Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs to assess the awareness, attitudes and opinions of Europeans regarding the Schengen Area. The free movement of persons is a fundamental right guaranteed by the EU to its citizens. It entitles every EU citizen to travel, work and live in any EU country without special formalities. The creation of the Schengen Area embodies concretely this freedom by enabling all persons to cross internal borders (meaning borders between countries of the Schengen Area) without being subjected to border checks. The Schengen Area guarantees unrestricted travel within a territory of 26 countries, home to more than 400 million citizens. The survey explores the awareness of the Schengen Area, frequency of travel within the EU, within and outside the Schengen Area, reasons for travel and transport methods, perceptions of ease of travel inside and outside the Schengen Area, attitudes towards the Schengen Area and its main perceived positive aspects, awareness and experience of temporary reintroduced internal border controls, awareness of EU initiatives to secure its external borders, as well as support for more EU involvement in securing external borders, and support for more funding to secure these borders. #####The results by volumes are distributed as follows: * Volume A: Countries * Volume AA: Groups of countries * Volume A' (AP): Trends * Volume AA' (AAP): Trends of groups of countries * Volume B: EU/socio-demographics * Volume B' (BP) : Trends of EU/ socio-demographics * Volume C: Country/socio-demographics ---- Researchers may also contact GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences: [https://www.gesis.org/eurobarometer](https://www.gesis.org/eurobarometer)