Schengen tightens external borders, creating a ‘wall’ around Europe.  The Schengen agreement has opened internal borders within Europe, but externally the opposite is true. Thus, while citizens of the belonging countries enjoy complete freedom of movement, citizens of non-member countries find that it is more difficult to receive entry visas to enter the Schengen area. As the Schengen area continues to expand, it enforces more and more restrictions on countries that lie outside its borders, turning borders that have historically been open into real fortresses and thus significantly affecting the political and economic relations between long-term allies. For example, the eastern borders of East European States that already enjoy some Schengen privileges are hardening in order to be allowed fully into Schengen as the existing members need to agree that they are implementing border controls satisfactorily. [1] The result is that they are cutting their inhabitants off from neighbours such as Ukraine, Belarus and Russia in order to give them better access to western Europe. Former members of Yugoslavia that before Schengen was implemented could travel to all the members of the EC (such as Macedonia) have had travel restrictions imposed and this burden has been increasing as more of their neighbours, such as Slovenia, join the zone or make free travel arrangements with it (such as Serbia and Croatia). [2]  [1] Batt, Judy, ‘The enlarged EU’s external borders – the regional dimension’, Partners and neighbours: a CFSP for a wider Europe, (September 2003), pp.102-118,  p.106  [2] Reactor, Taking Down the Schengen Wall, April 2009, pp.1-2,