Schengen is a small Luxembourg village lying at the geographic heart of Europe, where Germany, France and the Benelux countries meet. In itself, it is insignificant. Yet, its name today stands as one of the key components for the accelerating pace of European integration through the creation of borderless states and the greater freedom of movement of people travelling between them.

Today, that process takes a huge step forward when nine new EU member states, including Malta, join the 13 already participating fully in the system. Sea borders come down immediately while air borders will be abolished at the end of March 2008.

The next two weeks in Malta's history will be significant. While Schengen cannot rank in importance with the fundamental shifting of economic tectonic plates that will occur when Malta joins the eurozone, it is nonetheless a highly noteworthy step forward at the personal and human level.

With Schengen implemented, checks on individuals at the internal borders of the more than 20 (including the non-EU countries of Norway and Iceland) Schengen states will be abolished and common external borders will be established. Entry conditions and those for crossing external borders will be harmonised.

But this more generous freedom of movement between individual member states will be compensated for through a greater strengthening of police and judicial cooperation, in particular by the introduction of closer cross-border surveillance between Schengen states.

A sophisticated IT mechanism aimed at a database of rapid information, known as the Schengen Information System, on certain categories of people has been introduced. It is possibly the most important common database for the maintenance of public security and the management of external border controls. Thus, the concern about the weakening of national security, which might have arisen as a result of the Schengen agreement, is hopefully allayed by closer police, Customs and external border control authorities' cooperation.

This is what lay at the heart of the two years of intensely-detailed preparation for joining Schengen. Major road, sea and air infrastructures have had to be adapted. New national IT networks have been committed to the SIS and standards to ensure the protection of people's data have been introduced. For Malta, with its limited capacity, any new challenge of this nature stretches organisations to their limits.

Both the airport and the cruise liner terminal have had to invest in new Schengen arrival and departure facilities. The already over-stretched International Relations Unit of the Malta Police Force had to set up a new section - of about 40 police officers working round the clock - to administer the Schengen Information System in conjunction with the other member states. Arrangements for Malta's overseas missions to issue visas through their consular offices on behalf of all EU member states had to be made.

It is to the credit of the public officers in the Ministry of Justice and Home Affairs, which had to pull together the Schengen Project Team, consisting of about seven other major ministries and entities, that Malta's readiness to join has been effectively implemented. If the essence of efficiency is to do more with the same or fewer resources then credit for the Schengen project qualifies unreservedly as the mark of public service efficiency.