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FRANKFURT ON ODER, Germany -- Fireworks, cheers and music greeted the expansion of the EU's border-free zone to nine mostly Eastern European states on Friday, though some worry about a rise in crime or illegal immigration.

The expansion of the European Union's Schengen zone, allowing travel without showing passports, is seen by many as a final lifting of the old Iron Curtain divide between the former Soviet bloc and the West.

From a minute after midnight it was extended to Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Malta, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

With the current 15 members it creates an area one third the size of the United States, allowing passport-free travel for 4,000 km (2,500 miles) from Estonia to Portugal.

In the German town of Frankfurt on Oder on the Polish border, one of the most politically significant frontiers in Europe with a past of war, about 2,000 people celebrated with the EU's anthem, Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," and fireworks.

"It is very good. There are no borders, so there is equality. People can communicate now and travel from one place to another without any controls," said Polish student Mikhalina Yszczak, 23.

An hour earlier, frontiers fell away in the Baltic states, including the Latvian-Estonian town of Valga-Valka where a main street had been split by a border.

At the Slovak-Austrian crossing of Petrzalka/Bergen, people drank and got souvenir stamps in their passports.

"There were soldiers with machine guns here and concrete blocks which even a tank could not run over. Not even a mouse could sneak in," said pensioner Kolomam Prekop.

The move to expand Schengen, named after a Luxembourg village where a first agreement on passport-free travel was struck in 1985, is expected to boost business and tourism.

Some in Western Europe fear increased crime or that the EU will be less secure against illegal immigration.

In Austria, the village of Deutschkreutz near Hungary hired a private security firm to patrol its streets.

Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer acknowledged worries existed but dismissed them.

"What is Schengen? It is not criminality, it is not uncertainty, it is not fear. It is a big space of security and stability," he said on Thursday after sawing through the border pole at Petrzalka with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico.

Outside the EU, some in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia fear a "Fortress Europe" that will make travel more difficult, though European officials say this will not be the case.

The expansion of the Schengen zone will mean it covers 24 countries or about 400 million people. It initially covers land and sea borders but will be extended to airports next March.

The eastward enlargement of the EU in 2004 has already meant travel across borders has become much simpler.

Thousands of people from countries like Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have gone to work in Britain and Ireland, which opened their markets to workers from the new EU countries. Britain and Ireland themselves have remained outside Schengen.

Cyprus, which also joined the EU in 2004, has asked for a year's delay before opening its borders. Romania and Bulgaria, which became EU members this year, have yet to meet security criteria.