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ČR readies for border-free zone

Schengen membership starts Dec. 21, signalling EU unity

By Kimberly Ashton
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
December 5th, 2007 issue

When the Czech Republic joins the Schengen zone on the 21st of this month, the entry will signal an official unity between Western and Eastern Europe not seen in recent memory.
“The abolition of border controls has a symbolic significance for us,” Interior Minister Ivan Langer said at a press conference following a Nov. 23 meeting with his German counterpart, Wolfgang Schäuble, in Schwandorf, Germany, according to the Czech Republic’s official Web site. “Schengen is about freedom, about security and about trust.”
Although the country has had fairly open borders with its neighbors since joining the European Union in 2004, the checkpoints will be dropped when Schengen status is made official. Furthermore, non-EU visitors will be able to travel freely within the Schengen zone on one visa.
The Czech Republic is one of nine new countries to join the Schengen group this month, bringing the total number of member countries to 24. Existing members are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Greece, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden, all of whom are EU members except Norway and Iceland.
In preparation for this historic step, local authorities have been meeting with officials from neighboring countries to organize information sharing and have been making sure that everything is up to spec internally as well.
On Nov. 21, police checked more than 3,000 foreigners to combat illegal migration and illegal trade as part of preparedness plans to drop borders. Eighteen people, including those suspected of criminal activity, are to be expelled as a result. As a soon-to-be member, the Czech Republic has access to the new Schengen Information System II, a database containing millions of names and criminal records that will be shared among member states.
The Nov. 23 meeting, also attended by officials from Slovenia, Saxony and Bavaria, “was aimed at providing members of the German Bundestag and of state parliaments with information on the opportunities and consequences of Schengen enlargement,” said Markéta Matlochová, spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry.
Since 2005, Matlochová said, the country has been intensively preparing for Schengen membership regarding visa and consular cooperation, police and judicial cooperation, personal data protection, air border patrol and the information system. Although land borders are set to drop Dec. 21, air borders, meaning border checks at airports for flights from other Schengen states, will remain in place until March.
The Czech Republic, along with the other newcomers — Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia — was declared ready for Schengen entry Nov. 8 by the EU Council, Matlochová says.
With regard to the German border, which runs more than 800 kilometers, Czech and German officials have created two police centers whose headquarters will be in Petrovice and Schwandorf. Instead of traditional border patrol activities, these officers will perform random checks at a distance from the border, according to the Czech News Agency (ČTK). Therefore, Matlochová says, it will still be necessary to carry a passport when crossing the border even if travelers are not required to show it at the point of crossover.
About 390 Czech officers and 700 German officers will reinforce the border region, according to ČTK.
Not one Czech officer will lose his or her job because of the abolition of the borders, Matlochová says. Those who formerly guarded the border will be reassigned to the traffic, public order or railway police or will deal with foreigners’ residency permits, she says.
Despite the extensive planning leading up to the inclusion of Eastern Europe in Schengen, German newspapers have been reporting alarm along border regions. Deutsche Welle recently reported that “many Germans in the border region have expressed fears that opening the borders could lead to an influx of petty criminals, such as shoplifters, burglars and car thieves.” The daily Pražský deník reported Nov. 27 that insurance contracts against robbery have grown about 15 percent among German homeowners near the border. German police, too, have aired concerns and demonstrated against the abolition of the borders Nov. 22.
The German Interior Ministry did not reply to Prague Post questions on this issue by press time.
The one area where the border will remain is in parts of the Šumava National Forest, which borders the Bavarian National Forest.
The reason for this is to protect rare species sensitive to disruption, says Radovan Holub, spokesman for the forest.
“Czech and the relatively strong ‘nature law’ will not be overruled by Schengen,” he says. Due to the lack of paths, it will not be possible to cross borders along the approximately 50 kilometers of the park between the villages of Modrava and Železná Ruda. About 160 warning signs will be posted to alert hikers of this restriction, he says.

Kimberly Ashton can be reached at kashton@praguepost.com


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