🟡 The Brief – EU’s three biggest islands

EU’s three biggest islands

By Georgi Gotev

The EU’s biggest islands, according to geography, are Ireland, with 84 thousand square kilometres, Sicily (25,000 sq. km), and Sardinia (24,000 sq. km). But it can be argued that the EU’s biggest islands are three other, much bigger territories.

Sicily and Sardinia are islands, but they are part of Italy and completely integrated into the EU and Schengen.

Ireland is a special case because its largest part, the Republic of Ireland, is an EU territory (70,000 sq. km), but the rest – Northern Ireland (14,000 sq. km) – is part of the UK.

The Republic of Ireland, however, is not part of Schengen. The reason Ireland gave for not joining other EU states in forming the Schengen zone in 1985 was the existence of the Common Travel Area (CTA) with the UK, which would have disappeared if Ireland joined Schengen and the UK did not.

Cyprus is also an island (strictly speaking, part of the Asian continent, not Europe), smaller than Sicily and Sardinia, with only 9,000 sq. km. The Republic of Cyprus, an EU member, is legally obliged to join Schengen in the future, unlike Ireland, which maintains an opt-out policy and operates its own visa policy. Cyprus, however, does not yet meet the requirements to join Schengen.

There are, however, bigger territories that are part of the EU, which are de facto islands when it comes to EU integration.

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[Edited by Rajnish Singh]