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Policing EU frontiers on snazzy snowmobiles

• Mark Mardell
• 29 Nov 07, 12:01 AM

21 december is going to be a busy time for and as they criss-cross Europe, passportless to celebrate the widening of the

From that date, the borderless part of the European Union, the free travel area, is going to include that joined the EU three years ago. But the real action is happening now in the snowy woods between Ukraine and Slovakia. Two border police whizz past the silver birch trees on their rather snazzy new snowmobiles, leaving a shower of white in their wake.

Back in headquarters a half-hour drive away, an alarm rings and another policeman checks which camera has signalled the alert. He winds back the film to see what movement has caused the alarm. It was only a bird.

There's no need to alert the men on the snowmobile or any of the other guards patrolling the border. It's all part of a massive investment to protect a border that is less than 65 miles long. Five years ago there were nearly 300 border police now there are just short of 900.

The snowmobiles aren't their only new kit. They have quadbikes, top of the range four-wheel drive Mercedes, and vans mounted with night-sighted CCTV cameras.

They have 70 police dogs, special sensors to detect people hiding in coaches or good trains and they operate out of seven brand new police stations. One particularly sensitive area of the border has 250 security cameras along a stretch of less than 20 miles.

This has all cost 53 million pounds, much of it from European Union coffers. It appears that it is working and illegal immigrants are being caught. In the control room, we watch black and white film shot a few days ago - three men climbing under a fence that marks the border.

Less hi-tech means work as well and the head of the border police tells me proudly that, whilst out driving, he spotted two men crossing a field and promptly arrested them.

Of those caught, the biggest number are from Moldova while there are also a lot from India, Pakistan and China. They are all trying to get into the European Union and the reason this border is being strengthened is out of fear that, any who make it will be able to travel to most parts of the EU.

By the way, I can't explain the one Australian who was caught trying to get into Ukraine from Slovakia. I hope to speak to some of those detained tomorrow and, if I'm successful, you can read their stories here on Monday.

UPDATE
It seems while we were out playing with snowmobiles, Slovak security agents further towards the Hungarian border were arresting three men for trying to smuggle enriched uranium.

I am now on the Ukrainian side of the border and there seem to me three big questions.

• Did they have a buyer in mind?

• Is this really about building a nuclear bomb?

• Where did the material come from - could it indeed have been smuggled across they very border we were looking at?

The Slovak police now say they arrested two Ukrainians and a Hungarian trying to smuggle enouugh uranium to make a dirty bomb. They say they were going from Hungary to Slovakia. This seems a rather odd direction of travel: police seem to assume the plan was was to sell it in Slovakia but don't know to whom. One to keep an eye on.

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