[notjosh]

Careful, the blue card won't let you move around Europe as a citizen. They're issued by individual countries, so you'll have residency rights in that country, but standard "90 in 180" freedom of movement within Schengen beyond that:

> If you hold a residence permit or a long-stay visa issued by a Schengen area country, you will have the same freedom of travel as a Schengen short-stay visa holder.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180108183307/http://ec.europa.... (the main website is down, but here's a wayback snapshot)

[jaclaz]

But there is a long list of countries which citizens need NOT any Schengen Visa, and - namely - Canada, as an example for the OP, is among them:

https://web.archive.org/web/20171003065628/http://ec.europa....

So it really depends on where you are from originally.

[notjosh]

Regardless if you need a visa or not, you cannot (legally) stay more than 90 days every 180 days outside of the country you have a visa for.

Even as a permanent resident of Germany, I have no special rights within any other Schengen member states that grant me any ability to stay. (Though, there is a permanent residence category called "Daueraufenthalt-EU" which does grant additional rights through other Schengen(/EU?) states.)

[jaclaz]

>Regardless if you need a visa or not, you cannot (legally) stay more than 90 days every 180 days outside of the country you have a visa for.

Sure, you remain - until you become an EU resident/citizen - a foreigner and you don't have the same rights of an EU citizen.

What I was trying to say is that a Canadian citizen can come and stay up to 90 days in any EU country within the Schengen group without any need of any Visa.

The "Daueraufenthalt-EU" you are referring to is a sort of "intermediate status" that you may gain after having legally resided in Germany for 5 years, I presume there are similar provisions in other EU/Schengen countries as well.

[raul_duke]

Well that is true in theory. But it's also the case that there are no border checks within the Schengen area, so you should be able to move around as much as you like in practice.

[derriz]

That’s potentially dangerous advice. I’ve seen police go through a train asking people for papers passing between Schengen countries. Just because the chances of being caught are small doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to do something illegal wrt to immigration.

[SyneRyder]

Yep, Sweden & Denmark were doing passport checks on the train between Malmö and Copenhagen for a while:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35222015

[diggan]

> it's also the case that there are no border checks within the Schengen area

While this was true before, it's increasingly not like that anymore. The border between Spain-France has historically been easy to pass without proper checks, they are checking more and more individuals crossing the border. As I've been told, the increase is happening across other borders (in EU/Schengen) as well.

While sometimes they don't check at all, it's possible they do random controls. So keep in mind that you might not be able to pass the border without proper identification.