Open borders raise concerns in W. Europe

Leander Schaerlaeckens - BRUSSELS — Nine new countries joined the passport-free Schengen travel zone today, easing trade and travel but raising fears in some quarters that crime syndicates and terrorists will find it easier to reach Western European capitals.

The expansion creates a vast region of 1.4 million square miles and 400 million inhabitants in which residents can move freely from country to country much as Americans move from state to state.

Membership will be an economic boon to the eight formerly communist countries of Eastern Europe plus Malta, which will find it easier to sell goods or seek jobs in the wealthier West.

But police and other officials worry that because many of the new countries lie on important crime, human trafficking and illegal alien routes, the Schengen expansion will make those activities harder to curb.

“The easier we make it for people to get in, the more we will help to promote human trafficking and drug trafficking,â€