Border gates come down on Polish-German border others, available; Clarifies dateline (Roundup)

Dec 21, 2007, 2:08 GMT

Ahlbeck, Germany/Linken, Poland - Fireworks lit the sky over the Polish-German border Thursday night as the two countries celebrated the falling of the border gates as part of an expanded passport-free zone in Europe.

More than 6,000 Poles and Germans gathered in a festive party-like mood to celebrate the historic opening of the border in extreme northwestern Poland, near the Baltic sea.

Poland and eight other countries - Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Malta and Hungary - entered the Schengen zone at midnight.

The enlarged Schengen area, named after the town in Luxembourg where the free-movement scheme was first signed, will now accommodate a total of 24 countries - all of them European Union countries except Iceland and Norway.

Thomas Lenz, interior secretary of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern German state, emphasized that the border opening was a political and historic sensation - a 'singular symbol for a free and peaceful Europe.'

The first vehicle to cross was a bus which had to slowly plow through the mass of people.

'We've been waiting for this moment for 60 years,' said Janusz Zmurkiewicz, a top official in the Polish town of Swinoujscie, formerly called by its German name Swinemuende.

Before the border gate fell, Polish and German border guards were dismissed from their duty shifts.

Germany's police union leader Konrad Freiberg called dismissal of the border patrol 'irresponsible,' saying that joint pursuit of crimes such as theft had not yet been organized. He said he anticipated that more break-ins and thefts would take place along the newly opened border.

But Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's interior minister Lorenz Caffier said there was strong coordination between federal and state police and said he looked forward to the free travel and more robust trade across the border.