Free to roam? Not quite

The extension of the Schengen zone later this week means that border checks will disappear at many land frontiers across the continent. Just think – we could drive from Trieste to Tallinn, hopping over a half dozen or more borders along the way, without let or hindrance. Freedom to roam is a fine thing, but inhabitants of the newly extended Schengen zone might spare a thought for those whose lives are disadvantaged by the extension of the borderless bloc.

European Union policy towards the Lukashenko government in Belarus has used people-to-people contacts as a plank in furthering support for civil society in the ex-Soviet republic. And Belarusians have in recent years made use of the simplified visa regimes that have operated on the Republic’s borders with neighbouring Lithuania, Latvia and Poland. For Latvia, visas have been free and for the other two countries they are a nominal five euros a shot.

But Schengen comes at a price for Belarusians who have become used to slipping over the border to shop or trade at markets in Bialystok (Poland) or Vilnius (Lithuania). The old-style national visas are replaced this week by a new Schengen visa, and whether you want to go to Iceland, Spain or Latvia, that comes at a standard pan-European price: sixty euros. Worried bureaucrats from Minsk have been meeting with counterparts from their EU neighbours, and there is talk of special arrangements for selected categories of Belarusian citizens (eg. those participating in EU cooperation programmes and residents of areas close to borders with Schengen states).

Wander the streets of small towns on both sides of the Belarus-Lithuania border this week, and, whether it be in Salcininkai or Dieveniskes (both in Lithuania) or in Lida (Belarus), freedom to roam is not quite the thought on everyone’s minds. Rather, there is a palpable apprehension that Fortress Europe is constructing a new iron curtain along its eastern frontier.

This is the third in a series of occasional posts by Susanne Kries and Nicky Gardner of hidden europe magazine.