With saws and speeches, fireworks and music, borders fell across
Europe Thursday at midnight as the continent's passport-free zone
expanded by nine countries.
All along the Baltic coast, and deep along Germany and Austria's
eastern borders with Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and
Slovenia, the physical barriers fell as thousands of Europeans
watched in the chill night air.
The three Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania went
first, an hour ahead of six other European countries that are part of
the new passport-free zone - the Czech Republic, Hungary, Malta,
Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.
The enlarged Schengen area, named after the town in Luxembourg
where the free-movement scheme was first signed, now accommodates
a total of 24 countries - all of them European Union
countries except Iceland and Norway.
The free-movement area has been extended by 4,278 kilometres,
allowing people to travel from the icy planes of Norway and Finland
to the sun-drenched beaches of Portugal and Greece without once
having to show their passports.
While the dominant mood was one of festive celebration - on the
Estonian-Latvian border, for example, the European anthem,
Beethoven's An Ode to Joy, blasted through the dark night - not all
were in such high spirits.
Austrians largely stayed away from the celebrations at the
Mikulov/Drasenhofen border crossing on the Czech-Austrian border, CTK
agency said.
A large majority of Austria's population is sceptical of abolition
of border checks on eastern borders, fearing a massive influx of
criminal gangs endangering their security. Mindful of the
population's sensibilities, Austria continues to keep up border
security, deploying army and police forces for dragnet controls in
the border region.
But at the St Margarethen border crossing between Austria and
Hungary, Austria's Interior Minister Guenther Platter stressed that
with the fall of the borders, the division of the continent was over
at last.
Concerns have also been raised among Germans that opening the
borders could lead to an increase in smuggling and other cross-border
crime.
Even as police units were being withdrawn from some border
stations, Germany's GdP police union called on the government to let
them stay there in the immediate period after the new rules come into
effect at midnight.
'The end of border controls comes far too early,' said GdP
spokesman Josef Scheuring. 'Germany is not yet ready for it.'
Germany shares a 464-kilometre border with Poland and one
of 810 kilometres with the Czech Republic.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was on Friday to join the leaders
of Poland and the Czech Republic - Donald Tusk and Mirek
Topolanek - in the town of Zwickau, close to where the borders of the
three countries meet.
EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Portuguese Prime
Minister Jose Socrates, whose country holds the rotating EU
presidency, are also due to attend.
Apart from freeing up travel between the more established EU
members and the states that joined the Brussels-based bloc in May
2004, extending the Schengen rules is expected to underpin closer
economic ties between old and new Europe.
At the Stary Hrozenkov border crossing, Czech Interior Minister
Ivan Langer and his Slovak counterpart Robert Kalinak symbolically
sawed off the toll gate dividing the two young states. The two
Central European members of the European Union and NATO
were one state for 74 years before Czechoslovakia split on January 1,
1993.
Hungary's access to the Schengen zone marked a 'big step towards
European integration,' EU Commissioner Laszlo Kovacs was quoted as
saying by the Austrian press agency.
Of course, the shift of the Schengen borders eastwards presented
not only opportunities for Hungary, but also challenges, he added,
reassuring Austrians that after midnight on Thursday, they would be
as safe as they had been before.
In a nod to the events of 1989, when the Iron Curtain fell on the
Austro-Hungarian border, the then-foreign ministers of Austria and
Hungary, Alois Mock and Gyla Horn also participated in the ceremony.
In 1989 the two politicians were the first to physically cut the
barbed wire separating East and West.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
USA
Your Talkback on this Story