THE last East-West barrier in Europe was dismantled yesterday amid tears of joy.

As the leaders of Britain, France and Germany discussed the technicalities of European Union enlargement in Berlin, bulldozers were turning the Continent’s unification into reality on the ground by removing the final sections of the high metal fence that has divided the Italian border city of Gorizia from its Slovenian half, Nova Gorica, for more than half a century.

On May 1 Slovenia joins the EU along with nine other new members, most former communist nations. The day before, Romano Prodi, the European Commission President, President Ciampi of Italy and President Drnovsek of Slovenia are to swing a symbolic pick axe at the fence to mark the fall of a “mini Berlin Wall”.

By last night, however, there was no fence left to knock down. “We will have to put a bit back just for them,” Vittorio Brancati, the Mayor of Gorizia, said as the 2m (6ft 6in) fence was swept away.

The demolition left only a marker stone — inscribed “Republic of Italy” on one side and “Republic of Slovenia” on the other — standing marooned in the middle of the square outside the Habsburg-era Transalpina railway station, where the town was brutally cut in half in 1947. The fate of the stone, put up in 1977 on the 30th anniversary of the division, has yet to be decided. The fence will be cut into 100 pieces and sent to heads of state as a souvenir.

On the Slovenian side of the Piazza Transalpina, Cilka Princic, 79, said that she had lived in a flat above the railway station since 1948, and could remember when the dividing line was a barbed-wire barrier, later replaced by the concrete-and-wire mesh fence. “My husband was a railwayman. He died last year. I wish he could have lived to see this moment,” Mrs Princic said.

For 56 years she looked out at the Italian side, almost able to touch it. “It might as well have been on the Moon,” she said. “I remember one young man trying to get over to Italy in the early communist days. I saw him struggling on the barbed wire. He was hauled back by the police. I don’t know what happened to him.”

In 1991, when communism crumbled and Yugoslavia began to fall apart, Slovenia was spared the bloodshed that marked the birthpangs of independent Croatia or Bosnia. The red star on top of the Transalpina station came down, and movement across the seven checkpoints in the town became easier.

At Piazza Transalpina, General Carlo Colella, who as an army lieutenant put up the marker stone, described yesterday as unforgettable.

Signor Brancati said that some form of frontier control would remain until 2007, when Slovenia joins the Schengen Agreement on border-free travel. “But customs controls disappear on May 1 and instead of the fence there will be only a row of flower tubs and a commemorative mosaic.”

Mirko Brulc, Mayor of Nova Gorica, said that the city would be “a united town, but in two countries and with two administrations”.

He added: “We are completing a process which began in the 1960s with joint projects in sport and culture. This will now spread to transport, town planning, education and tourism.”

The town’s two halves are now ethnically divided, and even look different. Gorizia retains its Habsburg-era charm, but the Slovene side is marked by grey, concrete blocks.

Some Italian businessmen fear that Slovenia will gain an advantage through EU handouts for depressed areas. Adriano Ritossa, head of the far-right Alleanza Nazionale in Gorizia, said that Slovenes would “suck our economic resources from us. We don’t trust them.”

Signor Brancati, however, dismissed such fears, noting that more than a thousand Slovenes from Nova Gorica already cross daily to work in Gorizia. “There will be a gradual merging. What we have to do is to dismantle the psychological barriers as well,” he said.

Elvio Ferigo, 84, owner of the historic Café Garibaldi in Gorizia, who witnessed successively fascism, liberation and the confrontation with Tito’s Yugoslavia, said that EU membership held disadvantages for both sides.

But, he added, “all of us in this part of the world need to be part of something bigger after such a tortured history. We need Europe.”

Josco Marmolja, 73, who helped to put up the fence, said that it was a “terrible, terrible thing”, but he always knew it would come down. He had kept up friendships by chatting through it, but “it will take generations to establish trust again”.

Gorizia's changing rules

Nazi Germany, 1943-45

Brussels, after Slovenia joins the EU on May 1

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