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Adjusting to Schengen life

Border crossings easier, but length-of-stay regulations still tricky

By Markéta Hulpachová
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
January 16th, 2008 issue

ISIFA
Since the Dec. 21 border openings (such as that in Zittau, east Germany, attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, and EC President José Socrates), Czechs are at an economic advantage.
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When traveling through the newly expanded Schengen territory last month, Francis Flaherty, a U.S. citizen living in Prague, encountered an unfamiliar scene.
While crossing into Germany through the Czech border town of Rozvadov, Flaherty was still greeted by patrol stations and designated lanes. But, instead of the typical pileup of cars waiting at checkpoints and trucks pulled off at the side of the road for inspection, the deserted crossing was littered with defunct road signs and welcomed free-flowing traffic.
“Cars slowed down as they moved toward the checkpoint, unsure of what to expect,” Flaherty says. “But after making sure there wasn’t any border police waiting to stop cars, you continued on your way into Germany unhindered.”
Nearly a month has elapsed since the Czech Republic’s Dec. 21 accession into the Schengen zone, a community of European countries allowing free travel within its borders, and both travelers and local officials have lauded the smooth transition.
“Traffic should be significantly lower than it used to be due to the fact that it is now possible to cross the border basically anywhere — not just in places with border checkpoints,” says Foreigners’ Police spokeswoman Kateřina Jirgesová.
With Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia also joining the agreement, the Czech Republic is now completely surrounded by other Schengen countries, which allows it to abolish checkpoints along its entire border.
Unlike the seven other new member states, who all share their borders with non-Schengen countries, the Czech Republic is therefore immune to the increased administrative burden resulting from changed regulations and tight controls along the Schengen zone’s outer periphery.
“It’s possible to see it as an economic advantage, since we don’t have to invest any resources into guarding the inner border,” Jirgesová says.
The other new member states are not so lucky: Immediately after the accession, consulates in Slovakia and Poland buckled under a glut of visa applications from Russians and Ukrainians who were previously able to travel to these countries without a visa. But, because the Schengen agreement overrides any previous visa-related bilateral agreements, visitors from Russia or Ukraine are now treated the same as any other citizen of a country that is not a Schengen or European Union member.
“The increase in the visas agenda is enormous,” Slovak Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Ján Škoda told the Czech News Agency (ČTK) Dec. 22. “They continue to be issued within all the possible human and financial resources the ministry has at its disposal.”
Conversely, the amount of visa applications and visits to the Foreigners’ Police offices remains unchanged here, although, according to Jirgesová, “it may still be too early to determine the full effects of Schengen accession.”
Air space
Despite its Schengen-locked situation, however, the Czech Republic has until March to implement new visa regulations and stricter passport checks for non-Schengen or non-EU nationals at its international airports.
“The Czech Republic doesn’t neighbor any non-Schengen states as far as physical borders go, but we do have outer borders at our five international airports,” Jirgesová says.  
Aside from tighter airport security and new visa regulations, Schengen accession could also increase illegal immigration.
Due to relaxed border controls, the Foreigners’ Police now registers increased migration of Chechen asylum seekers trying to enter the country from Poland, ČTK reported Jan. 5.
“We continue to closely monitor these new trends in illegal immigration and fight against it accordingly,” Jirgesová says. “An essential element in this struggle is international cooperation, which has intensified significantly thanks to the Schengen agreement.”

Markéta Hulpachová can be reached at mhulpachova@praguepost.com


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