Contents

Talk:Border

In my opinion, "border length" discussions are of no value. From a political or practical point of view, the length of a border does not reveal anything. Take some European examples: Germany might have one of the "longest" borders in the EU, but, as all neighbouring states belong to the Schengen Area, the German border may be crossed at any place and, by virtue of EU law, must not be guarded. On the other hand, Andorra does not belong to the Schengen Area, and the operation of border control to that microstate might cost the Spanisch and French taxpayers some money. Italy has an extremely long coastline, but the costs and problems of border control and rescue of boat people focus on spots like Lampedusa and not necessarily Venice. Take the example of Spain: The Ceuta border fence might only make out a small percentage of the Spanish (and EU) external border, but, however, its operation might well entrench spending a remarkable amount of European taxpayers' money. Thus, it is simply not conceivable why the CIA mention "border length" in their factbook. As a person who does well believe that intelligence services, even the CIA, do cook with water and not with magic potion, I think that they simply refer to an irrelevant fact. --DanSchultz (talk) 20:21, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]