WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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Right, this is going to be a slightly more improvised
video than normal, for two reasons.

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Er, one, it is really cold here
and I want to move on,

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but also because I didn’t know I was
going to be passing through Schengen,

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a little town in Luxembourg on the borders
with France and Germany, until today.

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But here I am, next to the
international border, the Moselle River,

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and that border is a little bit weird.

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And I wasn’t going to do another video about
a weird border. Because I’ve done that.

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Years ago I went to the towns of
Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog

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in Belgium and the Netherlands,

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where the borders are incredibly complicated
and twisted thanks to history.

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But that’s an old video that
I’m not really proud of,

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and frankly it’s not that interesting:

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I only managed about a minute of script

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before I had to go into a diversion on sovereignty

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and why we even have borders
in the first place.

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Strange borders often make
for great video titles,

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but there’s not much to talk about
other than “huh, that’s weird”.

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Which is also why I’ve never been to the island
that changes country every six months

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between France and Spain.

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Because once you’re there, what is
there to say but, “huh, that’s weird”.

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But it turns out this border
raises a different question.

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If you look on the map, there is a tripoint
just of there, to the west of an island:

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that’s where France, Germany and Luxembourg
all meet.

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It was here – actually, on a boat out at
that tripoint,

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where the Schengen agreement was signed,

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where most of the countries of the EU,
all the ones that have their flags here,

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decided to open their internal borders.

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But that the tripoint there
is not strictly true.

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The border between Germany and Luxembourg
doesn’t follow the Moselle river:

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the border is the Moselle river.

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And that’s an important distinction.

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In most cases, international borders that
follow rivers

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are defined as following the centre line,

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which raises questions in itself,

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because rivers can erode the banks and change
paths sometimes,

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but borders are, at least, usually defined
as a line of theoretically zero width.

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Which is how mapmakers mark it.

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But here, Germany and Luxembourg share the
river north of France. It is a "condominium".

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Under the treaties they signed,
they both have full control over it.

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Which means that if you’re standing on the
north tip of that island,

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or on that bridge up there,

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you are in both countries at the same time.

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Not just in terms of
having a foot on each side,

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although that may well be
how the locals treat it,

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and that’s certainly how
the signs mark it.

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But no: standing on that bridge
above the water,

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all of you is in both countries simultaneously.

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This international border is a shape,
not a line. It’s two-dimensional.

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Although, actually, I guess it’s
three-dimensional if you count depth.

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Half an hour of research, and I can’t tell you
why they made that decision,

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or what the legal result would be if you tried
to commit a crime

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on that bridge or on a boat on the river.

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I even asked the folks at the little
European museum just over there,

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and they didn’t know the answer.

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Although they do have a lovely little display
of all the border guard hats

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that the Schengen agreement made obsolete.

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I suspect that the answer would be
“treat it as if it’s a line, it’s easier”.

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And that’s what I mean when I say that there’s
not much to talk about here.

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Because that’s one of the wonderful things
about borders like this:

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when you can walk between three countries

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as easily as you can walk between
counties or towns or neighbourhoods:

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it’s a lot easier to say “huh, that’s weird”

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and just get on with your life.