(Technical note: this message uses the ISO 8859-2 character set to
correctly represent the Polish names. For those of you who can't read
this, Polish names stripped of their diacritics follow in brackets.)
Last week, the German breakfast show _ARD Morgenmagazin_ -- aired
every other week on both German national public channels -- had an
interesting daily item. Wanting to acquaint the German public with
their Polish neighbours, who will probably before long be EU
citizens, they travelled through Poland from West to East.
They visited a different city every day, starting off in the twin
city of Zgorzelec/Goerlitz on the German-Polish border on Monday,
went through Wroc³aw (Wroclaw; German Breslau), Bia³a (Biala),
Lublin, and ended their trip in the village of îwier¿e (Swierze), on
the banks of the Bug river, which at that point separates Poland from
Ukraine.
Two items were sent from Poland every day, the second of which can
still be viewed on the internet in RealVideo. They are linked from
<
http://www.daserste.de/moma/momalive_thema.asp?id=60>. Of course,
the most interesting for us border freaks are the first and the last
day of their trip. Here's what they were all about:
Zgorzelec/Goerlitz
(<
http://www.daserste.de/real.asp?moma/020729_4_28.rm>):
A special event took place in this town on 28 July: a temporary
wooden bridge over the Neisse, the border river, linked two public
houses. And seated at long tables, people from both sides of the
border enjoyed an international dinner party. The organisers had
received permission from both German and Polish border officials,
although the festivities had to come to an end at midnight. The
interview you can see here, was made the next morning. The border
guards can be seen closely following what's going on on the bridge.
Surprisingly enough, the restaurant owner's on both sides hardly
speak each other's language. The economic situation on the two sides
of the river is completely different: the German town Goerlitz was
beautifully restored thanks to EU money. But one third of the people
have left for more prosperous regions of Germany. Zgorzelec doesn't
look as good, but unemployment is only half of what it is on the
German side: Germans come over to buy the cheaper Polish services.
(The city's hair dressers were especially mentioned.)
îwier¿e (Swierze)
<
http://www.daserste.de/real.asp?moma/020802_4_28.rm>:
As you can see in the footage, the Bug is not a swirling river, but
rather a gently flowing stream about 20, 30 metres wide. Every point
of the border is visited by a border official only twice or three
times a day. The woman being interviewed, living only a few metres
from the banks of the river, told the reporter earlier that she
received a telephone from the border guards especially to be able to
ring them whenever she sees someone illegally crossing the border
(something which she sees two or three times per month). Many years
ago, she sent a message in a bottle down the stream, which was found
by a Ukrainian woman. Over time, they have become good friends, but
haven't seen each other for some time. This is the woman near the end
of the clip. She expresses the hope that the accession of Poland to
the European Union, doesn't mean that a new wall will be built, this
time separating the EU from the rest of the world.
This, funnily enough, is one of the topics in this weeks' _Poland,
Belarus, and Ukraine Report_ by RFE/RL (Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty). Although the article is more about the political
implications, it seemed interesting enough to reproduce it here:
-----
WARSAW OBLIGES ITSELF TO BUILD EU'S 'BERLIN WALL.'
Last week, Poland concluded the Administration of Justice and
Internal Affairs Chapter in its European Union accession talks in
Brussels. Warsaw pledged to beef up control of its 1,200-kilometer-
long border with Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast, Belarus, and Ukraine to
prevent illegal migration, as well as smuggling of goods and
trafficking of drugs and arms, after Poland joins the EU. Some
Western media commented that Poland's obligations under this
negotiation chapter -- the 26th closed chapter out of a total of 30 --
are tantamount to erecting a new "Berlin Wall" on the country's
eastern and northern frontiers, which are expected to become the EU's
external frontiers as early as 1 January 2004.
Poland's obligations under this chapter involve a serious
overhaul of its border guards and, understandably, mean making
sizeable expenditures from the state budget. Interior Minister
Krzysztof Janik said in a recent press interview that in order to
qualify for joining the Schengen agreements, which may take place
around 2007, Poland needs $250 million euros ($245 million) to
refurbish its border-guard force and infrastructure. Janik hopes that
up to 75 percent of this sum may be covered by various EU funds and
programs.
Last week, Poland committed itself to increasing its current
border-guard force of some 12,000 servicemen and civilians to 18,000.
By 2006, the country will increase the force by 3,200, hiring 5,300
professional frontier guards and 1,000 more civil servants while
phasing out 3,100 army conscripts who are currently deployed.
The government plans to buy and equip seven helicopters and
two light aircraft for the border guards, as well as night-vision
surveillance devices and other necessary equipment. The number of
frontier watchtowers will be increased in order to space them at a
distance not exceeding 20 kilometers.
Poland's accession to the EU will, of course, mean
tougher restrictions on travelers from Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.
Warsaw will introduce visa requirements for them as of 1 July 2003.
At present, nobody is able to imagine the scale of technical
difficulties or the political and socioeconomic consequences of this
upcoming operation.
Chief EU negotiator Jan Truszczynski said last year in
Brussels that in 2000, Poland was visited by 5.9 million Belarusians,
2.8 million Russians, and 6.1 million Ukrainians. The same year,
Truszczynski added, Polish consulates all over the world issued only
185,000 visas.
But Truszczynski's estimates of eastern visitors to
Poland may be much lower than the real figures. According to the
Warsaw-based government-sponsored Center for Eastern Studies, in
2000, Poland was visited by 4.4 million Russians from Kaliningrad
Oblast alone (it should be noted here that Russia's Kaliningrad
exclave is inhabited by some 1 million people). Some 90 percent of
these visits, the center asserts, were made by people engaged in
petty cross-border trade, which primarily means smuggling of alcohol,
cigarettes, and other goods.
Such cross-border business is the main source of livelihood
for hundreds of thousands, if not for millions, of people in both
Poland and the three above-mentioned post-Soviet countries. When
Poland tightens its eastern and northern borders, there will
unavoidably occur "local economic disasters" in the borderland
regions of the four countries. As for Poland's eastern and
northern regions, they still may hope for some assistance from
Brussels under various development and restructuring programs. But
who will help people living under the penury of the Lukashenka and
Kuchma economies? And what about the Kaliningrad region with its
highest rates of criminality and HIV infection in all of Russia?
Poland officially advertises its role as a promoter of
European integration values on post-Soviet territory -- particularly
in Ukraine and Belarus -- but it is hardly believable that it will be
able to perform this role seriously after the line of European
prosperity and affluence moves some 600 kilometers eastward and
becomes a new "Berlin Wall" for Belarusians and Ukrainians for a
decade or longer. It is clear even today that not only Poland but the
entire EU will not be able to influence transformation processes in
the "forgotten Europe" -- Belarus and Ukraine -- if Brussels focuses
on tightening Poland's frontiers and fails to draw up attractive
and comprehensive programs to make Belarusians and Ukrainians
maintain their hope that some day they will also find themselves in
Europe not only geographically, but also politically and
economically. (Jan Maksymiuk)
(From: RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report, Vol. 4, No. 29, 6
August 2002)
-----
The web site of the Polish border guard (only in Polish, alas) may be
found at <
http://www.sg.gov.pl>.
-Pepijn