As of Monday, travellers can once again enjoy passport-free travel from Switzerland to Liechtenstein.
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Liechtenstein, whose capital Vaduz lies on a bus route between the eastern Swiss towns of Sargans and Buchs, has joined the Schengen area to which Switzerland has belonged for the past three years.
Under the Schengen agreement people can move between member states without having to show travel or identity documents.
Now that Liechtenstein has joined too, video monitors on the bridges over the Rhine between the two countries have been dismantled, and the mobile controls in the border area have been reduced to what they were three years ago.
Switzerland and Liechtenstein have been in a customs union since 1923, and share the same currency.
Liechtenstein is the fourth non-European Union country to join Schengen after Switzerland, Norway and Iceland. The zone now has 26 members.
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The end of systematic checks on people entering and leaving the country at border crossings could lead to increased police checks in border areas. But the Schengen agreement will have no effect on the transfer of goods as Switzerland is not part of the EU customs union.
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