FURTHER UPDATE October 2010

The dismantling of the police booths on the A9 motorway began this week. The whole border is to be pulled down, but beware! There is talk of retaining a speed limit of 80 or 90 km in this area for some time to come.

FURTHER UPDATE August 2010

Customs booths on the Perthus-La Jonquera border must be dismantled before September. The dismantling operation is expected to cost……17 million euro!!! this will be paid by the Commission Européenne (CE) in Paris.
The original speed limit of 10 km / h will also be replace by 50 km / h.
However, France still wishes to retain an administrative, police and customs presence around Perthus-La Jonquera, and may well build a footbridge over the motorway, to retain some sort of control.

UPDATE

The physical border between France and Spain, both at Le Perthus and on the A9, has been abolished. Threats by the EU to impose fines of over 10 million euros if customs booths are not dismantled, have finally hit home.
The move should make an enormous difference to the heavy summer traffic bottlenecks at both motorway and Le Pethus borders.
Border police controls have been abolished, and customs will move to Le Boulou on the A9. Police checks in the future will concentrate on immigration and terrorism.

French Spanish border contravenes Schengen

The European Union has once again asked the French and Spanish governments to dismantle the customs booths on the Le Perthus/La Jonquera border. According to the Schengen agreement of 1995, internal borders were to be abolished and EU members would have ‘ free movement of persons’ Some members (the United Kingdom and Ireland) opted not to fully participate in the Schengen system but France and Spain were not amongst these. Despite heavy summer traffic bottlenecks at both motorway and Le Pethus borders, it appears that the Catalan frontier is the most heavily manned and controlled by both French and Spanish police on a regular basis, of any other border in the EU!