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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2009
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Europe's Border Set to Move Farther East

Passport-free zone adds 9 nations—and some new worries

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(Newser) – The Iron Curtain moves east Friday as nine countries in Eastern Europe join the no-passport-needed Schengen travel zone, allowing citizens to travel from Estonia to Portugal. As many of the new EU member states join the zone, the Times of London travels to the Slovenia-Croatia border, one of the spots where security is being tightened to keep illegal immigrants out.

Brussels is throwing money at border police, beefing up fences, and equipping officers with everything from motorbikes to electric-powered skis. But from the Baltics to the Balkans, the new border is full of holes, as one bar in the former Yugoslavia makes clear. Its billiards table straddles the border; the bathroom on the Slovene side is called the "EUrinal."

People cross the border between Slovakia and Ukraine in the eastern Slovakian village of Velke Slemence on June 12, 2007. Slovakia is reinforcing and improving its border monitoring system to fulfil the European Union's conditions as the country is expected to enter the Schengen borderless area on Jan. 1, 2008....
People cross the border between Slovakia and Ukraine in the eastern Slovakian village of Velke Slemence on June 12, 2007. Slovakia is reinforcing and improving its border monitoring system to fulfil the...   (Associated Press)
Hungarian border police officers check the passports of motorists at one of the Hungarian-Slovakian border crossing points near Pacin, Hungary, in this July 9, 1994 file photo. In the two decades since the concept of borderless Europe has gained clear contours, the borderless area has extended to 15 countries, and...
Hungarian border police officers check the passports of motorists at one of the Hungarian-Slovakian border crossing points near Pacin, Hungary, in this July 9, 1994 file photo. In the two decades since...   (Associated Press)
Alois Mock, left, and Jiri Dienstbier, second left, then foreign ministers of Austria and Czechoslovakia, cut the barbwires that in the time of communist regime sealed the Czechoslovak-Austrian border in Hate, south Moravia, in this Dec. 17, 1989 file photo. Eighteen years ago, this was the first step in the...
Alois Mock, left, and Jiri Dienstbier, second left, then foreign ministers of Austria and Czechoslovakia, cut the barbwires that in the time of communist regime sealed the Czechoslovak-Austrian border...   (Associated Press)
A Polish border guard helicopter takes off to patrol the Polish-Ukrainian border near Huwniki, southeast Poland, Friday, Dec.14, 2007. On December 21 Poland is joining the EU Schengen zone and of all Schengen countries, Poland will have the longest border with non Schengen countries. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)
A Polish border guard helicopter takes off to patrol the Polish-Ukrainian border near Huwniki, southeast Poland, Friday, Dec.14, 2007. On December 21 Poland is joining the EU Schengen zone and of all...   (Associated Press)
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Poland, too, prepares its eastern border
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