Germany and the Netherlands adamantly rejected France’s request for a six-month delay in implementing the agreement.However, the Schengen convention is by no means dead. From now on, if all other six countries play by the rules, no officials will request identity papers from a traveller driving, say, from Brussels to Cologne or flying from Madrid to Lisbon.Moreover, the European Commission intends to publish plans next month for the removal of all other EU internal borders. The Belgian Prime Minister, Jean-Luc Dehaene, fired out a public statement saying he deplored the French action. It also underlines Mr Chirac’s determination to stick up for French national interests even at the expense of EU harmony.France’s allies are none too happy about the measure. TONY BARBER

Europe Editor
The Schengen agreement, the ambitious European Union plan to abolish internal border controls among member countries, limps into effect today like a sprinter shot in the leg. The man who fired the bullet is President Jacques Chirac of France.France’s last-minute decision on Thursday not to join Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain in allowing passport-free travel among themselves indicates Mr Chirac’s sympathy for the Government’s argument that the project will lead to more crime and illegal immigration.

The war, now in its seventh month, has killed tens of thousands of people, destroyed entire towns and sent Mr Yeltsin’s popularity ratings plunging to single digits.Mr Yeltsin’s spokesman, Sergei Medvedev, suggested the purge could extend further.The dominant figure in the Russian leadership is increasingly the Prime Minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin. A former energy industry apparatchik with scant charisma but a flare for compromise, he has burnished his public image – and enraged the power ministers – by presenting himself as Russia’s pre-eminent peace-maker.. His predecessor was sacked for showing insufficient resolve in pursuing Mr Yeltsin’s political foes.Also relieved of his job was the Nationalities Minister, Nikolai Yegorov, best known for his verbal recklessness, including predictions that Grozny, the Chechen capital, would fall without a shot being fired. A fourth sacrifice was Yevgenny Kuznetsov, governor of the Stavropol region, where Chechen commandos led by Shamil Basayev recently held more than 1,000 people hostage in a hospital.The changes suggest an important shift in the balance of influence inside the Kremlin, away from advocates of brute force who had been in the ascendant since Mr Yeltsin ordered troops into Chechnya last December. Author of a doctoral dissertation on Communist Party leadership in the fire service, he took command of Russia’s secret policemen in 1994. Though widely ridiculed as incompetent, Mr Yerin was made a “Hero of the Russian Federation” in 1993, a reward for his loyalty to Mr Yeltsin during a bloody showdown with parliament.Removed as head of the Federal Security Bureau, the domestic arm of the old KGB, is Sergei Stepashin.

Mr Yeltsin called the session to apportion responsibility for the Chechen hostage-taking debacle in southern Russia earlier this month.The Defence Minister, Pavel Grachev, volunteered to step down at the same meeting but seems to have retained his job.A presidential decree issued by the Kremlin yesterday named no successors for the departing officials, leaving two of Russia’s three “power ministries” effectively leaderless.The most significant departure is that of the Interior Minister, Viktor Yerin, at his post since early 1992. ANDREW HIGGINS

MOSCOW
In a sacrificial purge of the Kremlin’s inner circle, President Boris Yeltsin yesterday accepted the resignations of three hawkish loyalists, ditching his Interior Minister, the head of the internal security apparatus and a bellicose vice-premier responsibile for minority affairs.The three, all gung-ho supporters of the war in Chechnya and among Mr Yeltsin’s most ardent supporters, lost their jobs on the eve of a vote of confidence in the government by the State Duma, Russia’s rowdy lower house of parliament.They had offered to resign on Thursday at a tense meeting of the Security Council, the Kremlin’s secretive decision-making body. As Karsten Voigt, the foreign policy spokesman, noted: “German Tornados could have saved the American pilot, O’Grady, from being shot down.” Norbert Gansel, an SPD deputy, led a minority initiative, in which he and several dozen colleagues broke ranks, to vote with the government.Marieluise Beck of the pacifist Greens also backed use of Tornados, noting: “Auschwitz was liberated by soldiers.”Opinion polls suggest that a majority is in favour of tougher UN action in Bosnia, but that only a minority is in favour of Germany getting involved.. The government is accused of warmongering; the opposition is accused of turning its back on Bosnian suffering.Senior figures in the SPDtalk privately of an “absurd” policy stand. The usually sedate atmosphere of the parliament gave way to bitter and passionate exchanges.

The leadership eventually decided to refuse backing for the use of Tornados – partly in order to occupy what it perceives as the moral high ground and partly because of fear of “the zinc coffins coming back”.Western leaders and the UN Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, have long pressed for Germany to play a more active role But Germany remains sharply divided. Now we must show solidarity.” Most opposition Social Democrats (SPD) remained unconvinced. Rudolf Scharping, the SPD leader, argued that the use of German Tornados would be inappropriate, because of “the German past”. He noted, too: “War in the air does not lead to peace on the ground.”The SPD has torn itself apart, recently.