Europe adds nine countries to borderless travel zone
SCHENGEN, Luxembourg — In a small cafe overlooking the river where a landmark EU agreement abolishing border checks was signed 22 years ago, locals mused on life in a Europe without frontiers.
“I find it great, free movement. Always pulling out the papers, stopping at the border, that’s not a good thing,” said Frenchman Georges Klein, a retired chef.
Klein knows all about it: Hailing from a French village just across the border from Schengen, he commuted to work to this hamlet in southern Luxembourg for 40 years before retiring and drawing his pension in France.
On Tuesday, envoys from 25 European member states descend on this village of several hundred inhabitants to celebrate the inclusion this week of nine new countries, most of them ex-Communist states in eastern Europe, into the Schengen borderless zone.
For the new eastern members, Friday’s expansion marks one of the final steps in their transition from oppressed Soviet satellites to full-fledged EU members.
CURRENT MEMBERS: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Greece, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden.
NEWCOMERS: Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia. Checks at airports to be dismantled in March, 2008.
OTHERS TO JOIN: Switzerland and Liechtenstein expected to join in Nov. 2008.
