Homepage
Sitemap
Larger
Smaller
Login
Registration
Help
Terms of use
Historical enlargement of the borderless zone
21.12.2007, 10:37
The EU's borderless zone expanded to nine mostly eastern
European countries at midnight on Friday (21 December) in its biggest
enlargement so far.
Estonia, Hungary, Latvia,
Lithuania, Malta, Poland,
Slovenia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic - which all joined
the EU in 2004 - are part of this enlargement to the so-called Schengen area.
Land and sea border checks between them and the other
Schengen countries are now abolished, while air borders are set to follow on 30
March 2008.
While many EU citizens are looking forward to the free movement regime, others
have expressed fears that it will lead to an increase of crime and illegal
immigration. Politicians dismissed the fears, however.
Schengen "is not about criminality, it is not about insecurity or fear. It
is a bigger zone of peace, security and stability", Austrian chancellor
Alfred Gusenbauer said in Slovakia
on Thursday (20 December).
European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said: "Together we have
overcome border controls as man-made obstacles to peace, freedom and unity in Europe".
The nine new countries joined the 15 others already in Schengen - thirteen EU
states excluding the UK and Ireland which preferred to stay out, but
including Norway and Iceland.
Non-EU member Switzerland is
also to become a member of the Schengen area next year, while three EU states -
Cyprus, Bulgaria and Romania have still to meet the
necessary requirements.
It is not yet known when they will join the EU's borderless zone, but Cyprus is expected to do so around 2009, while Bulgaria and Romania are hoping to follow suit
by 2011.
More: EUobserver.com