1. Wide shot of Slovenia's border with Austria 2. Dimitri Rupel, Foreign Minister of Slovenia, and Ursula Plassnik, Austrian Foreign Minister, standing next to border crossing point 3. Sign: "Living Partnership" 4. Wide of podium 5. Close up of couple in traditional clothes 6. Line of Austrian police officers 7. SOUNDBITE: (Slovenian) Dimitri Rupel, Foreign Minister of Slovenia: "For my generation this is a symbolic moment, we have been scared about borders, about police and about customs. Today this is all over. What has happened today is a European event, for everybody who is living on the border, who is living in EU countries." 8. MusicIans playing 9. SOUNDBITE: (German) Ursula Plassnik, Austrian Foreign Minister: "Who could imagine 20 years ago what is happening here today? I think this idea is the point of the day. It's a happy day, it's a real European day. This day expresses what is at the core of Europe's work, of integration, of being together. The borders will not disappear, but the border barriers will. We will be able to live together, border barrier free. Eat together, shop together, sing and dance together." 10. Wide of officials 11. Austrian military band 12. Plassnik and Rupel raise border barrier as EU anthem plays and people clap STORYLINE: European leaders celebrated the end of border controls along a line stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic on Friday as many of the European Union's newest members joined the EU's passport-free zone. On Slovenia's border with Austria, the two countries' foreign ministers symbolically lifted a border barrier at the Karavanke tunnel to cheers and applause as the EU anthem played. "For my generation this is a symbolic moment, we have been scared about borders, about police and about customs. Today this is all over," Slovenia's foreign minister Dimitri Rupel said. "Who could imagine 20 years ago what is happening here today? I think this idea is the point of the day. It's a happy day, it's a real European day," Austria's foreign minister Ursula Plassnik said. The ceremony was one of several across the EU to mark the entry of nine mostly ex-communist nations into the Schengen area, which formally took place at midnight on Thursday. EU citizens will now be able to travel all the way from Portugal to Estonia 4000 kilometres (2480 miles) away without being checked at a border post. But the move has also forced the EU to tighten up controls on its new eastern borders to prevent infiltration by criminal gangs and illegal immigrants. The EU's formerly communist members have been introducing tighter controls on the eastern border since they joined the EU in 2004, with funding from their richer neighbours. Meanwhile, the EU's front line in the fight against illegal immigration remains to the south where thousands of poor Africans make the hazardous sea journey to the coasts of Spain, Italy, Malta and Greece. Also economic migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Asia take the overland route through Turkey and the Balkans. The Schengen agreement is named after the village in Luxembourg where it was signed in 1985 by France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands to allow citizens to travel freely between them. Since then, they have been joined by Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, as well as non-EU nations Norway and Iceland. Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Malta joined the EU in 2004, but have had to wait before gaining access to the frontier-free zone pending reforms to bring standards of their police and border guards in line with EU norms. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/a43fac7b8cce7ce053f25bdb9fb5e269 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork

• published: 21 Jul 2015
• views: 428