Swiss Angered by Stepped up German Border Patrols

Swiss politicians lashed out against Germany over the weekend for not warning its neighbor about dramatic security increases on the border it shares with its neighbor to the north. "It's incomprehensible that a neighboring country and close friend would not inform us of such a measure," Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey told the Bern newspaper Der Bund. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said he ensured his colleague that the strengthened controls were unrelated to difficult negotiations between the European Union and Switzerland that would bring the non-EU state into the Schengen Agreement, which effectively eliminates borders between European countries. In the wake of terror attacks in Spain, Germany has increased security on its non-EU borders, contributing to traffic jams in Switzerland reaching up dozens of kilometers in length.