The European Union's 10 newest members are sharply criticizing the European Commission (EC) decision Sept. 11 to postpone the elimination of passport checkpoints in Central and Eastern Europe for at least 18 months.

Countries including the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland were to join the Schengen Agreement next year. But now the EC is saying technical difficulties are responsible for the delay, an excuse those countries aren't buying.

The EU's newest members resent that their citizens still don't have the same freedom of movement across European borders as citizens living in the EU's 15 original member states.

"We're all very unhappy about the delay," said Polish President Lech Kaczynski Sept. 16 at a meeting of the four Visegrad countries in this village 35 kilometers (22 miles) west of Prague.

Unsurprisingly, Schengen was a heated topic at the Visegrad summit Sept. 15 and 16.

The agreement allows citizens of the 15 original EU member to move across borders without passports or border checks. Non-EU countries such as Iceland, Norway and Switzerland are also in the Schengen zone.

The presidents of the four Visegrad countries expressed their anger at the Schengen expansion delay and their resolve to convince the EC to speed up the process.

"We need to be confident," Hungarian President László Sólyom told reporters. "It's vital that our states join the Schengen Agreement by the end of 2007."

Kaczynski added that from that standpoint the EU isn't always a fair institution. "We need to fight to have the same rights," he said.

Czech reaction

Disillusionment over the issue is present at all levels of the government.

Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek said he believes the motives for postponing the extension are political and suggested that new EU countries are being treated like second-class members.

Interior Minister Ivan Langer insists the country is ready to have the Schengen Information System (SIS II), a security network that needs to be in place in all countries covered by the agreement, up and running by October 2007.

"It seems the old members aren't as motivated to have the system up on time," Langer told The Prague Post. "The European Commission's proceeding in this matter is troubling."

Brendan Donnelly, director of the Federal Trust, a London-based think tank, says the concern is understandable.

"I think there really are technical issues, but I can't guarantee you there aren't any political motives as well," said Donnelly.

Creating tensions

What does this mean for relations within the EUý

"I can imagine this could create some tensions between old members and new members," said Sergio Carrera, a research fellow at the Center for European Policy Studies, a think tank based in Brussels.

Carrera said the delay also sends a clear message to countries like Romania and Bulgaria, which are preparing to enter the EU.

"The leaders of these countries are seeing that after accession there will not be heaven. They will not have the same liberties and privileges as the original members right away," said Carrera.

According to Donnelly, the delay also suggests that EU integration is not going to be a smooth process.

Public opinion about the border policy has been shaped to a degree by migration patterns after the 2004 EU expansion.

Thousands of workers from new member countries, particularly Poland, where unemployment is especially high, have flooded the labor markets of West European countries like England and Ireland, which decided not to impose any worker restrictions. In England alone, some 400,000 East Europeans found work following EU membership.

Countries such as France and Germany, which chose not to open its labor market to new members until 2011, watched on in horror.

Carrera said their fear is unfounded.

"There's still this fear of massive immigration, but the statistics are misleading," he said. "It doesn't necessarily mean that 400,000 migrant workers suddenly arrived in Britain. It doesn't take into account that many of them were there already, but illegally, so they were unregistered."

According to Carrera, the EC still fears that the borders of the new members aren't secure enough and that illegal immigrants would use East European countries as a point of entry to migrate further west.