(11 Dec 2008)
1. Swiss and French flags
2. Cars coming from France entering Switzerland
3. Sign reading: (French/German/Italian) “Border”
4. Swiss customs officer watching cars entering Switzerland
5. Wide of Swiss customs officers waving on cars
6. Swiss customs officers stopping car; car leaving
7. SOUNDBITE: (French) unnamed car driver, Vox Pop:
“To cross the border faster, especially between France and Switzerland, and that will be already a good thing.”
8. Pan of custom officers checking car boot
9. Close-up of Swiss customs badge
10. Customs officer searching car boot
11. Wide of Swiss customs officer checking passport inside office
12. SOUNDBITE: (French) Alain Brenneisen, Lieutenant Colonel, Swiss Customs:
“So for us the big changes with Schengen are: access to the SIS (Schengen Information System) database, which will allow the intensification of research of people in some circumstances; the joint policy of visa, which will allow some tourists to come to Switzerland with the Schengen visa and finally the big change that is to come is in the airports where the flow of Schengen and non-Schengen passengers will be divided from 29 March of next year.”
13. Swiss customs officer checking passport
14. Close of finger being checked with finger print machine
15. Various of computer used to check finger print
16. Monitors
17. Wide of customs
STORYLINE:
Travellers and customs officials in Switzerland on Thursday were eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Schengen agreement on Friday which will enable them to enter the European Union’s passport-free travel zone.
Switzerland is not a member of the 27-nation bloc, but is almost surrounded by EU states.
Swiss authorities will drop identity checks at land borders on December 12 and will lift controls at airports as of March 29 next year.
Schengen membership complicates Switzerland’s ties with Liechtenstein, its only non-EU neighbour.
Tiny Liechtenstein has no international airports of its own and it has not yet joined the passport-free zone.
Under the agreement with the EU, Switzerland will have to put in place video surveillance and mobile border patrols along its frontier with Liechtenstein because the principality still remains out of the borderless zone.
EU members Cyprus, Britain and Ireland have opted to stay out of the borderless zone, while Romania and Bulgaria have yet to qualify.
All other EU states, plus non-EU nations Norway and Iceland participate.

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