Fortress Eastern Europe

In May 2004, Poland officially became the Eastern Border of the EU but preparation for this role has been going on for years. More border control was part of the conditions Poland had to fulfill to become an EU country.

The EU border politics has been expensive for Poland; despite significant amounts given to Poland through programs like PHARE, the state has paid a lot to upgrade technology and security in border areas, It has also cost a lot to eastern areas which have lost cross-border trade which it depends on. But it is a risk the government takes because it hopes to gain more than it loses in EU politics – or at least to be able to claim this. It is also a policy undertaken to try to keep out poor and refugees who are not entirely welcome.

It is hard to come up with a comprehensive figure for the money spent by PHARE in Poland; projects are maintained separately and one can find records of dozens of them. Typically, millions of dollars, sometimes 10s of millions, are given for concrete work: building towers, buying infrared equipment, passport, readers, etc.. The EU Schengen Fund recently gave money to modernize border crossings with Kaliningrad. Money has also come from the EU Schengen Fund for building refugee »reception« (detention) centers.
It is with this new technology that border guards are able to crack down on people trying to cross borders. It is in these centers that people who countries like Germany and Austria don’t want to deal with will be held. 2003 was the first year when the border guards have not published clear figures about the number of people held, deported or refused entry to Poland, but, if we take figures from 2002 into account and calculate the growth according to the border guards claims, then well over 10,000 people were detained by border guards in 2003.

Worst of all, plans (which have been kept highly secret) to build a border fence are apparently in the works. We cannot find out much information about this: we have not seen any documents related to this fence but we have seen PHARE documents which speak of the building of »platforms« and »installations« and we understand this to be related to the fence. Among the bidders is the Israeli firm Magal which built the infamous Israeli-Palestinian wall and which has built border fences in several countries.

There is a big lack of public debate on these issues but unfortunately, many people would probably be in favour of stronger crackdowns on immigration. The first issue, racism and religious bigotry, is only part of the problem; many average people just figure that with a 20% unemployment rate, Poland cannot absorb immigrants. However, in many areas, especially border areas, we have found people with a totally different attitude towards border politics.

In fall 2003, a visa regime was implemented for Russians, Belarussians and a number of other countries. It has effected above all poorer people – people who cross borders to trade, tourists, students and people who work in Poland or travel often here. The implementation was a nightmare; in a country the size of Russia, there are 4 consulates: in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad and Irkutsk which is a disaster for people living in many parts of the country. (By comparison, Ukraine has 5 consulates. There are 4 Russian consulates in Poland and Belarussian ones as well.)

This border politics can be seen as pressure put on non-EU countries to comply with EU business and trade policies.
Business and trade also play a part in border control. The tobacco lobby is unhappy about illegal cigarettes and a good deal of border guard activity goes into cracking down on this trade and also trade in CDs. Much of the work is done not on the border but in places like the Warsaw stadium where people from many countries trade and are frequently subjected to raids.

There is very small resistance to this but anarchists and others have organized protests and border camps to draw attention to these problems. Recently, refugees have started to organize themselves but these groups are more integration-minded than looking to radically confront the ungoing politics.

For more information on some of these issues, we can recommend some articles and sources on the Internet: has a search function and you can look up No Border and migration related activities Also has a number of articles.

A 4 issues of a bulletin called »No Borders« has been published in English and some more in Polish. We are hoping to put them on the net as well.

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