Malta is one of nine countries that are expected to be approved as new Schengen members today, allowing for the free movement of people without internal borders, in 24 countries.

The European Union’s Justice and Home Affairs Council is expected to approve membership of Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia and Malta.

The current Schengen countries are Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Monaco, Holland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Austria, Greece, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.

The practicalities of free movement within an area without internal border controls were first set out by the Schengen Agreement in 1985 and the subsequent Schengen Convention in 1995 that abolished controls on internal borders between the signatory countries.

The EU’s Amsterdam Treaty, which came into force on the 1 May 1999, incorporated the set of measures adopted under the Schengen umbrella into the union’s legal and institutional framework.

These measures are now fully accepted by 13 EU member states (with the exception of the UK and Ireland), as well as other countries external to the EU (Norway and Iceland). The Schengen principles of free circulation of people are backed by improved and still developing security measures to ensure that the EU’s internal security is not threatened.

The harmonised EU external border controls are defined in Article 6 of the Schengen Convention. They are further specified in the common manual on external borders, a set of operational instructions on the conditions for entering the territory of the signatories States and detailed procedures and rules for carrying out checks.

A complex information system known as the Schengen information system (SIS) was set up to exchange data on certain categories of people and lost or stolen goods.

Land borders are scheduled to be opened towards the end of the year, while sea and air borders checks will be lifted by the latest in March 2008.