Border controls along the former East Europe Bloc border ceased to exist from midnight yesterday as most of the European Union's new members join the EU's passport-free travel zone.

The entry of nine nations into the EU's Schengen area means citizens can travel by land or sea between 24 European nations from Portugal to Poland, Iceland to Estonia without facing border checks.

"Together we have overcome border controls as man-made obstacles to peace, freedom and unity in Europe," declared European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

He has said the expansion of the open-border zone will boost trade and tourism, inject new life into border-region economies and end the hassle of frontier delays.

As a condition for joining, the new members have tightened controls on their borders with non-EU nations and linked into an information exchange system for police and border guards around the EU, measures which Barroso said will boost security.

At the Berg-Petrzalka checkpoint along the Austrian-Slovak border yesterday morning, Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico symbolically sawed through a barrier. Gusenbauer dismissed concerns the expansion could aid criminals or illegal immigrants.

"Schengen is not crime, not insecurity, not fear," he said. "Schengen stands for freedom, security and stability."

Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Malta joined the EU in 2004, but have had to wait before gaining access to the frontier-free zone pending reforms to bring standards of their police and border guards in line with EU norms.

Travelers from outside the EU will be able to move freely within the extended zone on a visa obtained from any one of the member nations.

Among the changes expected today, controls will fade away on busy land crossings between Germany and Poland, Austria and Hungary, Italy and Slovenia, or on ferry crossings between Finland and Estonia.

Air passengers flying between the old and new EU member states will continue to face passport controls, although they too are scheduled to disappear on March 30.

EU spokesman Friso Roscam Abbing said it was too early to say when Romania and Bulgaria - which joined the EU on January 1 - would be ready to enter the border-free zone.

Cyprus, the 10th nation to join the EU in 2004, has opted to keep some border checks and will stay out of the zone, along with old EU members Britain and Ireland.

The Schengen agreement is named after the village in Luxembourg where it was signed in 1985.

Agencies

(China Daily 12/21/2007 page7)