At midnight on the 21st of December 2007, Slovakia became the member of free border-crossing system within 24 European countries.
For Slovak citizens, this important step means mainly the removal of border checks on borders with the Czech republic, Austria, Hungary and Poland. The Slovak-Ukrainian borders remain the external borders of the Schengen zone in the East.
The demolition of the physical border barriers symbolises the opening of the so-called borderless zone, the main goal of which is to simplify the internal borders' crossing to the citizens of participating countries and to support the development of free flow of goods and services.