All-day Schengen celebrations at Austrian-Slovenian border

Vienna - Austria and Slovenia on Friday staged all-day celebrations at various locations on their joint border, marking the extension of the Schengen agreement. At midnight Austrian and Slovenian politicians made a start by removing a toll post at the Spielfeld-Sentilj border station. Thousands of locals joined in the Schengen party, overcoming the freezing temperatures with plenty of mulled wine. On Friday morning, the foreign ministers of both countries, Ursula Plassnik and Dimitrij Rupel removed the last visible signs of the border between Slovenia and the Austrian province Carinthia. Austria's Plassnik praised the 'day of joy', saying that the 'project Europe' deserved all the efforts. 'Friends and not foes should live at the borders,' Rupel, quoting a passage from the Slovenian national anthem, said. 'Today we can say goodbye to the Austrian-Slovenian antagonism,' Slovenia's foreign minister said, reminding of inner-Austrian debates over the rights of the Slovenian minority in the country. Carinthia's right-wing governor Joerg Haider however refused to participated in the celebrations. An outspoken critic of the Schengen enlargement, he stressed that the event was no cause for joy. © 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

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All-day Schengen celebrations at Austrian-Slovenian border

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