"But a lot has been done over the last two-and-a-half years, things have truly improved."
He noted there are resources, such as a database of wanted people and missing vehicles, that border guards can use.
In Latvia, Bulis boiled it down to more work for him and his men, and expects illegal immigrants from Russia -- mainly citizens of Ukraine and Moldova rather than Russians -- to be added to his tasks.
While guards on the new fringes of Europe expect more work, there are suggestions that migrants anticipating increased vigilance after December 21 are racing to get to the West.
Jozsef Tanyik, border guard press chief in Nyirbator, near Hungary's borders with Ukraine and Romania, said 70 illegal immigrants were caught in the first few weeks of November, compared with 166 in all of 2006.
"Many migrants who had arrived in Ukraine might have thought it better to get through Hungary before the Schengen entry. That's a mistake, as border control has been just as strong up to now as it will be after," he said.
Border guards in eastern Europe say they can meet the challenge of the extra work, and the EU adds that the end of passport controls inside the bloc will be accompanied by greater cooperation between its members.
POLICE PROTEST
In some western EU nations, including German areas bordering Poland and the Czech Republic, doubts have been raised about the effectiveness of border controls run by governments in the former communist states.
In Austria, the government has angered its neighbours with plans for joint border patrols: they say this suggests Austria does not trust eastern European authorities to do a proper job.
In Germany, hundreds of police officers, unusually, staged a protest in November in Frankfurt on Oder on the Polish frontier against plans to remove them.
The police argued the government should leave them in place until a security analysis had shown they were no longer needed.
Miodrag Shrestha, head of Group 484, an organisation dealing with refugees and visas in Serbia, said one way migrants might find it easier to travel would be in the fact they would need only one visa instead of several.
"But the European Union and Schengen zone are like a fortress, and the EU is rather picky when choosing who will get the 'exclusive' Schengen visa," he said.
Migrants caught trying to cross into the zone illegally will still face an uncertain future in detention centres.
In one centre in the eastern Slovak town of Humenne, people from India and Pakistan were among those waiting to find out where their future lay, alongside Nijabat Walizada, a 21-year-old from Kabul, Afghanistan.
"There is fighting between Taliban and America and that's why I have escaped," he said. "Because of insecurity, everyday explosions."
Albanian Gjorggi LLeshi from Kosovo, also 21, is awaiting deportation from Nyirbator in east Hungary.
Why did he want to go to the West? "It's a good life," he said.
