Gates at Slovenia's border crossings with Italy, Austria and Hungary were lifted a minute past midnight on Friday and border checks were eliminated as the country joined the Schengen border-free area along with eight other newcomers to the bloc.
"Today is a special day for Slovenia and the whole of Europe (...) we can see a new face of Europe here in Nova Gorica," President-elect Danilo Tuerk said at a ceremony in the city that has all but merged with its Italian counterpart Gorizia despite the border cutting through.
"This is a Europe that is opening up in a way that could not be more obvious, and this is certainly a reason for celebration," Tuerk said at one of the several events held along what are now officially internal EU borders.
At the other end of Slovenia, at the Sentilj/Spielfeld border crossing with Austria, Interior Minister Dragutin Mate lifted the gates along with the head of the Slovenian Police Force Joze Romsek and Austrian Economy Minister Martin Bartenstein. It is Mate who is widely seen as having played an instrumental role in pushing for the expansion of the Schengen zone after the project threatened to falter earlier this year due to problems with the next-generation Schengen information system, SIS II.
The Austrian economy minister was also happy that the two nations could celebrate this important day together, although he said that the border between Slovenia and Austria was never perceived as the "Iron Curtain".
Bartenstein commended Slovenia on its achievements since joining the EU in the past three years and a half, while he said he was looking forward to Slovenia's presidency of the EU.
At the Robic/Stupizza border crossing with Italy, Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel observed the lifting of the border with Premier of the Italian Region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia Riccardo Illy. "Slovenians in the 19th century dreamt of living in a united Slovenia, in the same country... Today, these dreams have come true," Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel said and added that for the first time after many years "Europe is coming together and assuming the true European face".
The border in Robic/Stupizza was then symbolically sawed through by the local mayors, Robert Kavcic of Kobarid and Piergiorgio Domenis of Podbonesco on the Italian side of the border.
A large crowd gathered to mark the end of border at the Fernetici/Fernetti checkpoint with Italy, while the officials on hand for the occasion from both countries hailed the historic milestone, saying it guaranteed a brighter future to generations to come.
Slovenians awaited the historic event with enthusiasm. Only hours before the historic moment a group of mountaineers climbed the snow-covered, 2000-metre high pass of Savinjsko sedlo to remove the border sign between Slovenia and Austria. "The mountains will really be free now," the group told the public broadcaster, TV Slovenija.
Dismantling of border checkpoints began even before today's festivities and is expected to be completed in March. Still, many of the buildings will be left standing, some to be used by police and others by local communities and businesses.
The biggest Schengen expansion to date, it created a 24-country area stretching over 3.6m sq. kilometres in which EU citizens will be able to travel without passports. eliminated in March, when airlines implement new flight timetables.
The outer edge of the Schengen zone shifted to the 760-kilometre long border with Croatia. Officials have been reassuring people living along this border that virtually nothing will change on the external EU borders on 21 December, as Slovenia had already been carrying out Schengen-compliant border checks before that date.
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