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After years of negotiations, EU hold-out Switzerland has thrown open its borders, joining the continent’s Schengen passport-free zone in a bid to eliminate long waits at frontier checkpoints.
Although the traditionally insular republic’s move to share a border with 24 other countries has surprised many, the Swiss are hopeful that the abolition of passport checks at the border will speed up the process by which foreigners leave Switzerland.
Signage directing motorists into queues at the border will now be removed, and replaced with new signs reading “Okay, you’ve had your fun, now fuck off.”
Fiercely neutral Switzerland has long avoided involvement in international organisations, only joining the United Nations in 2002. Debate had centred on whether the independent-minded Swiss could bring themselves to bend the knee to faraway Geneva.
The BBC reports that a perverse result of Schengen implementation will be that as Switzerland dismantles checkpoints on its borders with France, Germany, Austria and Italy, it will be forced to erect new checkpoints on the border with Schengen non-member Liechtenstein.
In determining which nascent superpower represented a greater threat to their cherished independence, the Swiss decided that the European Union was less worrying than the Principality of Liechtenstein. The 160-square-kilometre behemoth has long menaced the peace-loving Swiss, with villainous Prince Hans-Adam II known to be plotting for the latter to fall into his malevolent clutches.
EU officials have ruled out fast-tracking Schengen membership for Liechtenstein, following concerns over tax fraud and lingering suspicions that the country is fictional, like Denmark.
