On the follow up of the investigation regarding the Australia Visa waiver bilateral agreements in Schengen space, below is the reply we received from the Belgium Embassy in Canberra.
The Belgium embassy was one of the embassies that gave us the clearest answer regarding our query on the bilateral agreements, providing even further clarification regarding what could happen when visiting the other Schengen countries that may not have similar agreements.
Extract from email received from the Belgium embassy in Canberra dated 23 October 2018:
"The notion of "any", implies the application of a "moving" 180-day reference period, looking backwards at each day of the stay (be it at the entry or at the day of an actual check), into the last 180-day period, in order to verify if the 90 days/180-day requirement continues to be fulfilled.Please find the link to the calculator for your reference http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/borders-and-visas/border-crossing/index_en.htm In addition the Embassy can inform you that, according to the SPF Foreign Affairs of Belgium, the actual bilateral agreement formally confirmed through an exchange of Notes on 25 July 1951 between the two countries, entitles Australian citizens to stay for two more months without a visa in Belgium after 90 days spent in any other Schengen country. However, these agreements predate the Schengen agreement and not all border officers are familiar with these old agreements. If you wish to take advantage of one or more bilateral agreements and in doing so have to travel into or through a Schengen country with which Australia does not have a bilateral agreement, you may experience legal difficulties or even be arrested and /or deported."
***ANYONE that wishes to use this information to plan their travels within Schengen space is at their own risk and should seek further confirmation from the embassy of the relevant countries and their border police for further details on these agreements, we are just sharing some of our findings and will not accept any responsibilities for the information stated in this post and related posts. This information was received by email from the listed countries embassies in Canberra when queried about the agreements, their replies are copied to post of each listed country on the lists above, for reference only.
*** If you have experience using the different Australia Visa waiver bilateral agreements in Schengen space give us a shout and help us improve this post contents so that other travellers may more easily plan their journeys.
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