The European Union (EU) agreed on Tuesday to incorporate 10 newcomers that joined the bloc in 2004 into its Schengen visa-free zone.

The removal of border checks between old Schengen members and newcomers will be phased. Land borders are scheduled to be opened from Dec. 31, 2007, while airport and sea border checks will be lifted by March 30, 2008 at the latest, according to a timetable adopted by EU interior and justice ministers.

The 10 countries, however, are required to meet a precondition that they must ensure their frontiers to the world outside the EU are secure in the course of next year. The European Commission will make an assessment of whether their borders are up to the existing standards by mid-2007.

Under the Schengen Agreement, citizens and goods from all the signatory countries are allowed to enter each other's border freely.

At present, 15 countries have joined the Schengen Agreement. They are mostly the oldest EU members plus two non-EU nations -- Norway and Iceland. Britain and Ireland, two of the oldest members, have not joined the Schengen Agreement.

Nine of the 10 newest EU members, mostly eastern European nations, have applied for full entry into the Schengen Agreement, while Cyprus opted to reserve certain restraints.

But their entry, originally scheduled for 2007, was marred by technical delays with an update for the EU's visa data sharing system. The delays were criticized by the 10 countries as politically motivated.

Under the temporary arrangement, the Schengen hopefuls will be allowed to link into the old visa database until the new version's launch slated for June 2008.

Besides the 10 EU members, namely, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Malta and Cyprus, another European country Switzerland, which is surrounded by EU countries but is not a member, is also set to join Schengen Agreement next year.

Source: Xinhua