Although China recently strengthened its frontier controls, North Korea's are relatively loose.
First, they will ponder the idea of an EU border-police to replace national frontier controls.
The June summit should "examine the possibility of temporarily re-establishing internal frontier controls in case of exceptional difficulty in the management of the [EU's] common external frontiers".
In justice and home affairs, the biggest problem has been sidestepped by letting Britain and Ireland "opt out" of the plan to end frontier controls.
Both Austria and Germany have already talked of invoking a similar clause against Italy.In short, frontier controls are indeed disappearing inside the Schengen area.
The creation of the UK Border Agency to staff and enforce frontier controls – the title placing it at arm's length from government – was part of the same trend.
It lies across the drug route westward from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey, in an area, between Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Montenegro, where frontier controls are less than watertight.
"If she means everything she says, for instance, about keeping frontier controls, then we will have another crisis with Britain on our hands before long," one European diplomat said.
None proved practicable until the disintegration of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991 left the Russian Federation with, initially, relatively weak frontier controls between it and the newly inde- pendent Baltic republics.
But the rest have already accepted that Britain, which insists on retaining its frontier controls, should be given an opt-out (which is pretty ironic, given the unpopularity of the social-chapter opt-out).
