States of the Schengen area include:

Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Spain, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, Sweden, Italy, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, as well as Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Iceland (the last 4 are Schengen countries that do not form part of the EU).

Note: UK, Ireland, Cyprus, Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania are member states of the EU but are not Schengen states.

In the course of stay without the need to obtain visa, a foreigner should meet the following conditions:

* have a valid travel document,

* be able to justify the purpose and conditions of the planned stay and

* have sufficient means of subsistence or a possibility of obtaining them in accordance with the law,

* not be a person for whom an alert has been issued in the SIS for the purposes of refusing them entry as well as

* is not considered to be a threat to public policy, internal security, public health or the international relations of any of the Member States of the European Union, and in particular not be a person for whom an alert has been issued on this basis for the purposes of refusing them entry in national databases of the member states