Wednesday 19 December 2007

Noël, no borders

On 21 December, the Schengen system of borderless travel is extended to include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia and Malta. Even Switzerland is expected to join Schengen next year.

The date of 21 December was picked so that Christmas celebrations could be held on various borders when the final restrictions there are lifted. Schengen currently has fifteen Member States, the whole EU except Britain and Ireland but plus Norway and Iceland.

Bavaria, however, has said that it will continue to check people, albeit not on the border itself. The Bavarian Interior Minister has said that such checks will be conducted “all along the Czech border”. Similar checks were introduced in Bavaria when controls were abolished on the border with Austria. [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 8 November 2007]

---- An excerpt from John Laughland's Intelligence Digest. For a free e-mail subscription to the Intelligence Digest, please click here ----

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