EU To Decide In December Over Internal Border Lifting
Shaveta Bansal - All Headline News Staff Writer Luxembourg (AHN) - The European Union on Thursday said a decision on when to lift the border restrictions between its 10 new members and the bloc's older states will be taken late this year. The EU had planned to dissolve the borders between its older member states and the 10 mostly ex-communist states that entered the bloc two years ago in October 2007. But it acknowledged last month that it was running late, sparking protests by the newer members. "The council intends to decide in December 2006 on the date for the lifting of the borders," a senior EU diplomat said at a meeting in Luxembourg. The so-called Schengen area, or free zone, which includes 13 old EU member states plus Norway and Iceland but excludes Britain and Ireland, has no internal border posts and checks, and a common Schengen visa allows free movement in all participating countries. EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini told a news briefing he hoped the restrictions would be lifted by the end of 2008. The ministers attributed the delays for the border-free zone to some technical hurdles which the new member states reject as a pretext to delay the Schengen enlargement amid growing fears of mass immigration. The newcomers are Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.
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