Polish Eastern Border as an External European Union Border

Abstract

1. Apart from Finnish-Russian border, Polish eastern border is one of the longest external European Union and Schengen Agreement land borders under the control of a single country. 2. For the last few years, Polish Government has significantly improved the infrastructure of Border Guard at the eastern border in order to prevent “flooding” of Europe by illegal immigrants and smuggled goods. 3. Despite this fact, Polish eastern border does not have sufficient infrastructure, especially when the number of border checkpoints and roads is taken into consideration. The abovementioned, along with difficult border crossing procedures, may lead to creating a new symbolic “wall” separating Poland from its eastern neighbors. To avoid this, it seems necessary to introduce procedures, both on regional and international levels, to encourage trans-border regions’ integration. Co-operation should be dealt both in industry as well as in cultural and scientific fields 4. Border traffic at the polish eastern border has been relatively steady for the last few years and even in the case of Ukraine its intensity was increasing. Poland’s accession to Schengen Agreement dramatically reduced border traffic at all three borders. Initially, it was caused by the visas for the citizens of neighboring countries and difficult access to them. As a con-sequence, the number of crossings at the eastern border by the foreigners dropped in certain places even by 50%. To improve the situation it is necessary to simplify visa procedures. Moreover, works on introducing possibilities of crossing borders within so-called small border traffic guaranteed by the EU law, should be finished as quickly as possible. Otherwise, restrictions in border traffic may weaken economic development in border regions and decrease trade exchange, both on local and regional scale.