BillCosby

Fanfare for bigger border-free EU

A checkpoint between Austria and Slovakia has been dismantled in one of several events marking the enlargement of the Schengen border-free area.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer sawed through a barrier at the Berg border crossing.

Ceremonies also took place in Hungary, Slovenia and the Czech Republic.

At midnight nine new countries will join the pact, creating a 24-nation border-free zone.

See map of Schengen area

Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Czech Republic are becoming part of the Schengen area.

Initially the lifting of internal controls will involve just land and sea borders, but that will be extended to airports at the end of March 2008.


From midnight tonight you can travel 4,000km from Tallinn in Estonia to Lisbon in Portugal without any border controls."
Robert Fico, Slovak Prime Minister

New border security fears
In pictures: Border-free EU
Mr Gusenbauer welcomed the extension of the Schengen zone, rejecting fears that it might create a crime wave in Austria.

He said it would expand the "zone of safety and stability in Europe" which would be of direct benefit to Austria.

Not only would Austria be safer, he said, but it would also "lie much more in the heart of Europe than it has in the past".

The European Commission says that one billion euros (£720m) has been spent on beefing up security on the new EU frontiers, which include missions along the Polish and Slovak borders.

Mr Fico said: "From midnight tonight you can travel 4,000km (2,485 miles) from Tallinn in Estonia to Lisbon in Portugal without any border controls."

Passport-free

The enlargement will allow passport-free travel throughout the area, although travellers can be asked to carry documents by any of the countries concerned.

For non-EU nationals, a Schengen visa allows travel across all the participating countries.

Thirteen existing EU states have already been part of the Schengen accord as well as two non-EU countries, Norway and Iceland.

The UK and Ireland are not involved in the passport-free zone but they have signed up to agreements on security.

A significant element of the Schengen agreement is the Schengen Information Service (SIS) which features an enormous database in the French city of Strasbourg.

The SIS database enables police in any Schengen state to find out whether a suspect has been involved in any kind of crime across the EU.

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Preventive war is not war!!!!Counter-terror is not terror

BillCosby

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Preventive war is not war!!!!Counter-terror is not terror

The_Heretic

The reasons the E.U. are dismantling trade barriors are entirely different from the NAFTA construct. The Euoprean-plus countries unified their economies out of necessity, while NAFTA was primarily the work of corporations attempting to exploit the economies of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, thereby undermining those economies.

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You won't fight for the Bill of Right? Fine! I won't fight for you in the ballot box!

DRS112

How....?

The_Heretic

The only way the E.U. was ever going to be able to compete with other major markets was as a single economy, instead of several dozen tiny ones. While European companies likely helped, they had nothing like the grand bilking scheme the NAFTA masterminds had.

__________________

John McCain: "He's in Iraq... with a few centuries to kill."





You won't fight for the Bill of Right? Fine! I won't fight for you in the ballot box!

DRS112

I understand why the EU did it....I'm asking how NAFTA was designed to only benefit corporations....

Shake

NAFTA guaranteed no rights for workers, only 'free trade' that did not include freedom of travel. Companies get tariff-free access to new markets and cheap workers with no rights (while still collecting subsidies from governments), workers get increasingly lower wages and restrictions on where they can work. All the energy wasted on racist hysteria over Mexicans could be better used creating a NAFTA that works.

DRS112

Well, I've got a couple of questions....do the other trade blocs garuntee anything?

Also, how would we set an agreement that would establish worker rights in another country? Would we in fact set a minimum wage (in another country) only for our suppliers that go there? Would it be set for any company that we import from there regardless of where it's home is?

Dianekkdi

The racist hysteria is created by the pro amnesty and corporate sponsorship.

Those who are against illegal immigration will cite economics, environmental impact, wage suppression--economics again, government sponsorship...etc.
Most all of it comes down to economic impact.

It's not a case of "you don't like me so you don't want me here..." That's redherring bullshit that helps avoid the real issues. The reduction of an argument down to emotion is a sure way to avoid logical solutions.

Notice who's inciting the racism. Redirect the conversation back to issues: NAFTA, economics, environmental impact.

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Shake

If we were to establish worker rights in a bloc such as NAFTA, it would simply be that citizens of all these nations are allowed to work in any NAFTA nation, enjoying the same rights any worker in said nation enjoys. If Worker A goes to Canada, he receives the same rights in terms of minimum wage and anti-discrimination law that a native worker receives.