[From the Introduction]. Since the beginning of the European Union a number of scientists and politicians discuss about what the EU in the practice really means. Is it an international regime or either a federal state? In the opinion of some of them the EU is a network of states involving the pooling of sovereignty. The European Union was founded on a series of intergovernmental bargains, bargains which have more recently included the Single European Act (1986), the Maastricht Treaty (1991) and the Amsterdam Treaty (1997). More than any other kind of international organisation, the political process of the EU can be described by the term supranationality

Stoklosa, Katarzyna.

English

Archive of European Integration

1Borders and Neighbourhood in Eastern and Central Europe. A Study of the HistoricDevelopment after World War II with the Case Study of the Oder-Neisse RegionSince the beginning of the European Union a number of scientists and politiciansdiscuss about what the EU in the practice really means. Is it an international regime or either afederal state? In the opinion of some of them the EU is a network of states involving thepooling of sovereignty.1 The European Union was founded on a series of intergovernmentalbargains, bargains which have more recently included the Single European Act (1986), theMaastricht Treaty (1991) and the Amsterdam Treaty (1997). More than any other kind ofinternational organisation, the political process of the EU can be described by the termsupranationality.The members states of the European Union are no longer the centres of power withintheir own borders, they have limited their sovereign rights. The treaty agreed at the Maastrichtsummit of 1991 seeks not only to extend the scope of economic and monetary union, but alsoto extend the framework of political integration to other spheres. It affected above all thenotion of EU citizenship: every national citizen of a member country of the EU is also acitizen of the Union with the right to travel and reside anywhere within the EU and the rightto vote and contest political office in the country of their residence. Freedom of movementand the right to political participation wherever one resides challenges a traditional basis ofloyalty to a single state.2This freedom of movement is just a reality in the members states of the EuropeanUnion. The disappearance of borders between the countries of the European Union is oftentaken as the future model for Eastern and Middle Europe, but in Western Europe this processdid not come overnight; it has a long history. For more than forty years, the Council of Europeand the European Community encouraged cross-border cooperation as an important conditionfor European Integration. The early years of the 1950’s saw the governments of Austria,Belgium, France, Holland, Luxembourg, Germany, and Switzerland, as well as localauthorities of numerous regions in these countries signing agreements for cross-bordercooperation. In those years, the idea of institutional bodies of cooperation in border regions--Euroregions--began. In Western Europe the shift from the world of nation-states into theworld of supranational integration came earlier than in Eastern and Middle Europe. Extendingthe process to those countries is a major challenge for the European Union.1 See: Keohane, R. O. / Milner, H. V. (eds): Internationalization and Domestic Politics, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press 1996, 10.2The Eastern and Middle European countries are currently transforming from autocracyto democracy, surging past a history of violence and dispute to a future of security and lawfulcompromise. This transformation is effecting the nature of the border-regions in thosecountries. The frontiers of the Eastern and Middle European countries, drawn under theVersailles Treaty of 1919, were the scene of hostile confrontation and ethnic conflicts in theinter-war period—1919 through 1939. During World War II, they were the first victims ofNazi German occupation and revisionist annexation by Nazi Germany’s allies. After the war,the populations of these countries suffered massive displacements that altered the ethnic mapof the continent. This created particularly favorable circumstances for the social and politicalmaneuvering of the Soviet government. Those countries freed from Nazi German occupationby the Soviets after World War II were transformed into socialist regimes under the rule ofSoviet controlled parties. For nearly forty-five years, those countries were the parts of a vastsocialist bloc with tightly regulated borders. Cooperation on the border-regions was limited;and in some instances, cooperation was relegated to black market activities. Because of thecircumstances of the post-war period and the Soviet domination of Eastern and MiddleEurope, nationalism became stronger in those countries. That nationalism constructedhomogenous societies in the Soviet controlled countries. Nationalism is a major stumblingblock to cooperation in the border regions. The collapse of the soviet-bloc in 1989 openedEastern European borders. The opening of the borders allowed for the first time since 1945the opportunity for cross-border cooperation analogous to the Western European integrationprocess.Nowadays, the citizens of the border regions of Central and Eastern Europe areoptimistically embracing the future of a united Europe. The fall of the Iron Curtain has notonly restored the freedom of movement between the citizens of West and the East Europe, itrestored freedom of movement between the countries of the former Soviet bloc. Even there,where in the times of the Soviet empire, the borders could only be crossed with severelimitations, cross border Euroregions have come to life.3 A number of problems in the dividedtowns of border regions can only be resolved with the help of European Union programs, suchas INTERREG and PHARE.While the European Union grows and extends membership to new candidates, newfrontiers are traced becoming another dividing line. For example, this process is occurring onPoland’s eastern borders with Russia (Kaliningrad), Ukraine and Belarus. The difficulties2 See: Khan, L. A.: The Extinction of the Nation-State: A World without Borders, The Hague: Kluwer LawInternational.3experienced after World War II in border regions of the socialist bloc need not be repeated onnew frontiers. This is a challenge to European Integration: to improve the cooperation withcountries that are not members of the European Union. Maybe helpful for this can be the factthat the European region is different from more general processes of increasing global flowsand interactions not only by the internal density of political interaction but also on the basis ofshared cultural and historical connections. The existence and development of a formalintergovernmental institutional framework enables the further development of theseinteractions and common histories. But it does not mean that the European regiongeographically and functionally represents a simple political, social and cultural unity. TheEuropean region is made up of a number of subregions and regimes which are very different.The fifteen EU members and their shared institutions provide a core around which the rest ofEuropean interaction is increasingly focused. But also within the Union there are clearlydifferences between the original six members and the later members. Beyond the EU core,EFTA and NATO membership produces a second concentric ring of interaction andinstitutional forms in the European region: in the case of NATO institutions lock Europe intoglobal military networks, while in the case of the Scandinavian countries institutions andinteractions exist which cut across EU regimes. Finally, Eastern and Central Europe, theBalkans and the states of the ex-Soviet Union all maintain a variety of diverse relations andinteractions with the European core.4 It is important to know this differences to can developEurope without borders.Using the example of the Polish-German border region I would like to show how the borderscan be overcome and how they can change into the sphere of contact and cooperation. ThePolish-German border region is a special case, it may be viewed as an extreme one. Withoutany doubt it is a most interesting example. This border has not grown historically, rather itwas created under a policy of power. It is a result of a decision made at the Potsdamconference of the allied powers. As a result of the manner it was established, the border washermetically tight. "It had to defend itself so that it kept the neighbours apart"5. For a longtime, the border was impermeable to persons, goods and information, and as such it resembledthe iron curtain.3 See: Helga Schultz: Die Grenzen innerhalb der sozialistischen Staatenwelt, in: Schultz, Helga (eds): Grenzenim Ostblock und ihre Überwindung, Berlin: Arno Spitz 2000.4 See: Held, David / McGrew, Anthony / Goldblatt, David / Perraton, Jonathan: Global Transformations. Politics,Economics and Culture, Cambridge: Polity Press 1999, 76.5 Helga Schultz/Stefan Kowal: Neue Grenzen - alte Nachbarn. Deutsche und Polen im Widerstreit von großerPolitik und regionaler Kooperation, in: Wagener, Hans-Jürgen/Fritz, Heiko (eds): Im Osten was Neues. Aspekteder EU-Osterweiterung, Dietz 1998.4First contacts were established as late as in the mid fifties; they were mainly initiated by thebrotherly parties of both countries. Meetings followed of party delegations, schooldelegations, workplace teams. Many relations, chiefly in the municipal area, had their orignsin the necessities of daily life. Most of the contacts, however, were controlled from the topdown, rather than developed by the people themselves. That was not possible because to the"average inhabitant of the border area" the border were hermetically closed, simplyimpassable. These circumstances were not conducive to proper neighbourly relations or crossborder cooperation.And yet, it was precisely that border that opened up on New Year's day of 1972. Thisdecision was made by the politicians Erich Honecker and Edward Gierek.6 The opening of thePolish-German border provided the inhabitants of the border region with the first everopportunity to establish contact and to start cross-border cooperation. This opportunity waseagerly picked up by the people. Contacts related to cross-border trade and work migrationwere massive and the order of the day in the seventies. Cultural cooperation took the shape ofintense contacts between German and Polish schools, pre-school, musical colleges,community houses, theatres and other cultural institutions. A major contribution to thedevelopment of the cultural cooperation was made by the so called activists of Polish-Germancooperation, mainly well educated persons in various cultural institutions. Frequently, theseofficial contacts evolved into personal relationships and friendships, which survived theclosing of the border in October 1980.Thus, it may be said that the opening of the borders in the seventies presented a greatopportunity to the German-Polish border region and its population. It was then that a socialfrontier was developed, where people who belonged to two different cultures and spoke twodifferent languages met. These nine years of an open border have resulted in manyneighbourly relationships which seemed almost impossible given the experience of the war,the forceful drawing of the borders, subsequent massive displacement of persons and themany years of a tight, impermeable border. But it really happened and was very aptly namedby Helga Schultz "the miracle on the Oder".7These cross-border contacts and activities suffered greatly, or sometimes were totallydamaged, after the closing of the border in 1980. Yet, many have survived the grim times ofthe closed border (1980-1991) and have been developing further since the reopening in 1991.6 Zimmermann, Brigitte/Schütt, Hans-Dieter: Ohnmacht. DDR-Funktionäre sagen aus, Berlin: Verlag NeuesLeben 1992, 219.7 Helga Schultz/Stefan Kowal: Neue Grenzen - alte Nachbarn. Deutsche und Polen im Widerstreit von großerPolitik und regionaler Kooperation, in: Wagener, Hans-Jürgen/Fritz, Heiko (eds): Im Osten was Neues. Aspekteder EU-Osterweiterung, Dietz 1998, 191.5In many cases the cooperation in the times of the open border (1972-1980) and today can bedetermined to be continuous. In the Concert Hall of Frankfurt, German students play musicwith music students from Slubice as they did before. The activists from the times of the firstborder opening are today also involved in the development of German-Polish friendship in theborder region.

"Borders and Neighbourhood in Eastern and Central Europe. A Study of the Historic Development after World War II with the Case Study of the Oder-Neisse Region"

1Borders and Neighbourhood in Eastern and Central Europe. A Study of the Historic
Development after World War II with the Case Study of the Oder-Neisse Region
Since the beginning of the European Union a number of scientists and politicians
discuss about what the EU in the practice really means. Is it an international regime or either a
federal state? In the opinion of some of them the EU is a network of states involving the
pooling of sovereignty.1 The European Union was founded on a series of intergovernmental
bargains, bargains which have more recently included the Single European Act (1986), the
Maastricht Treaty (1991) and the Amsterdam Treaty (1997). More than any other kind of
international organisation, the political process of the EU can be described by the term
supranationality.
The members states of the European Union are no longer the centres of power within
their own borders, they have limited their sovereign rights. The treaty agreed at the Maastricht
summit of 1991 seeks not only to extend the scope of economic and monetary union, but also
to extend the framework of political integration to other spheres. It affected above all the
notion of EU citizenship: every national citizen of a member country of the EU is also a
citizen of the Union with the right to travel and reside anywhere within the EU and the right
to vote and contest political office in the country of their residence. Freedom of movement
and the right to political participation wherever one resides challenges a traditional basis of
loyalty to a single state.2
This freedom of movement is just a reality in the members states of the European
Union. The disappearance of borders between the countries of the European Union is often
taken as the future model for Eastern and Middle Europe, but in Western Europe this process
did not come overnight; it has a long history. For more than forty years, the Council of Europe
and the European Community encouraged cross-border cooperation as an important condition
for European Integration. The early years of the 1950’s saw the governments of Austria,
Belgium, France, Holland, Luxembourg, Germany, and Switzerland, as well as local
authorities of numerous regions in these countries signing agreements for cross-border
cooperation. In those years, the idea of institutional bodies of cooperation in border regions--
Euroregions--began. In Western Europe the shift from the world of nation-states into the
world of supranational integration came earlier than in Eastern and Middle Europe. Extending
the process to those countries is a major challenge for the European Union.
1 See: Keohane, R. O. / Milner, H. V. (eds): Internationalization and Domestic Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press 1996, 10.
2The Eastern and Middle European countries are currently transforming from autocracy
to democracy, surging past a history of violence and dispute to a future of security and lawful
compromise. This transformation is effecting the nature of the border-regions in those
countries. The frontiers of the Eastern and Middle European countries, drawn under the
Versailles Treaty of 1919, were the scene of hostile confrontation and ethnic conflicts in the
inter-war period—1919 through 1939. During World War II, they were the first victims of
Nazi German occupation and revisionist annexation by Nazi Germany’s allies. After the war,
the populations of these countries suffered massive displacements that altered the ethnic map
of the continent. This created particularly favorable circumstances for the social and political
maneuvering of the Soviet government. Those countries freed from Nazi German occupation
by the Soviets after World War II were transformed into socialist regimes under the rule of
Soviet controlled parties. For nearly forty-five years, those countries were the parts of a vast
socialist bloc with tightly regulated borders. Cooperation on the border-regions was limited;
and in some instances, cooperation was relegated to black market activities. Because of the
circumstances of the post-war period and the Soviet domination of Eastern and Middle
Europe, nationalism became stronger in those countries. That nationalism constructed
homogenous societies in the Soviet controlled countries. Nationalism is a major stumbling
block to cooperation in the border regions. The collapse of the soviet-bloc in 1989 opened
Eastern European borders. The opening of the borders allowed for the first time since 1945
the opportunity for cross-border cooperation analogous to the Western European integration
process.
Nowadays, the citizens of the border regions of Central and Eastern Europe are
optimistically embracing the future of a united Europe. The fall of the Iron Curtain has not
only restored the freedom of movement between the citizens of West and the East Europe, it
restored freedom of movement between the countries of the former Soviet bloc. Even there,
where in the times of the Soviet empire, the borders could only be crossed with severe
limitations, cross border Euroregions have come to life.3 A number of problems in the divided
towns of border regions can only be resolved with the help of European Union programs, such
as INTERREG and PHARE.
While the European Union grows and extends membership to new candidates, new
frontiers are traced becoming another dividing line. For example, this process is occurring on
Poland’s eastern borders with Russia (Kaliningrad), Ukraine and Belarus. The difficulties
2 See: Khan, L. A.: The Extinction of the Nation-State: A World without Borders, The Hague: Kluwer Law
International.
3experienced after World War II in border regions of the socialist bloc need not be repeated on
new frontiers. This is a challenge to European Integration: to improve the cooperation with
countries that are not members of the European Union. Maybe helpful for this can be the fact
that the European region is different from more general processes of increasing global flows
and interactions not only by the internal density of political interaction but also on the basis of
shared cultural and historical connections. The existence and development of a formal
intergovernmental institutional framework enables the further development of these
interactions and common histories. But it does not mean that the European region
geographically and functionally represents a simple political, social and cultural unity. The
European region is made up of a number of subregions and regimes which are very different.
The fifteen EU members and their shared institutions provide a core around which the rest of
European interaction is increasingly focused. But also within the Union there are clearly
differences between the original six members and the later members. Beyond the EU core,
EFTA and NATO membership produces a second concentric ring of interaction and
institutional forms in the European region: in the case of NATO institutions lock Europe into
global military networks, while in the case of the Scandinavian countries institutions and
interactions exist which cut across EU regimes. Finally, Eastern and Central Europe, the
Balkans and the states of the ex-Soviet Union all maintain a variety of diverse relations and
interactions with the European core.4 It is important to know this differences to can develop
Europe without borders.
Using the example of the Polish-German border region I would like to show how the borders
can be overcome and how they can change into the sphere of contact and cooperation. The
Polish-German border region is a special case, it may be viewed as an extreme one. Without
any doubt it is a most interesting example. This border has not grown historically, rather it
was created under a policy of power. It is a result of a decision made at the Potsdam
conference of the allied powers. As a result of the manner it was established, the border was
hermetically tight. "It had to defend itself so that it kept the neighbours apart"5. For a long
time, the border was impermeable to persons, goods and information, and as such it resembled
the iron curtain.
3 See: Helga Schultz: Die Grenzen innerhalb der sozialistischen Staatenwelt, in: Schultz, Helga (eds): Grenzen
im Ostblock und ihre Überwindung, Berlin: Arno Spitz 2000.
4 See: Held, David / McGrew, Anthony / Goldblatt, David / Perraton, Jonathan: Global Transformations. Politics,
Economics and Culture, Cambridge: Polity Press 1999, 76.
5 Helga Schultz/Stefan Kowal: Neue Grenzen - alte Nachbarn. Deutsche und Polen im Widerstreit von großer
Politik und regionaler Kooperation, in: Wagener, Hans-Jürgen/Fritz, Heiko (eds): Im Osten was Neues. Aspekte
der EU-Osterweiterung, Dietz 1998.
4First contacts were established as late as in the mid fifties; they were mainly initiated by the
brotherly parties of both countries. Meetings followed of party delegations, school
delegations, workplace teams. Many relations, chiefly in the municipal area, had their origns
in the necessities of daily life. Most of the contacts, however, were controlled from the top
down, rather than developed by the people themselves. That was not possible because to the
"average inhabitant of the border area" the border were hermetically closed, simply
impassable. These circumstances were not conducive to proper neighbourly relations or cross
border cooperation.
And yet, it was precisely that border that opened up on New Year's day of 1972. This
decision was made by the politicians Erich Honecker and Edward Gierek.6 The opening of the
Polish-German border provided the inhabitants of the border region with the first ever
opportunity to establish contact and to start cross-border cooperation. This opportunity was
eagerly picked up by the people. Contacts related to cross-border trade and work migration
were massive and the order of the day in the seventies. Cultural cooperation took the shape of
intense contacts between German and Polish schools, pre-school, musical colleges,
community houses, theatres and other cultural institutions. A major contribution to the
development of the cultural cooperation was made by the so called activists of Polish-German
cooperation, mainly well educated persons in various cultural institutions. Frequently, these
official contacts evolved into personal relationships and friendships, which survived the
closing of the border in October 1980.
Thus, it may be said that the opening of the borders in the seventies presented a great
opportunity to the German-Polish border region and its population. It was then that a social
frontier was developed, where people who belonged to two different cultures and spoke two
different languages met. These nine years of an open border have resulted in many
neighbourly relationships which seemed almost impossible given the experience of the war,
the forceful drawing of the borders, subsequent massive displacement of persons and the
many years of a tight, impermeable border. But it really happened and was very aptly named
by Helga Schultz "the miracle on the Oder".7
These cross-border contacts and activities suffered greatly, or sometimes were totally
damaged, after the closing of the border in 1980. Yet, many have survived the grim times of
the closed border (1980-1991) and have been developing further since the reopening in 1991.
6 Zimmermann, Brigitte/Schütt, Hans-Dieter: Ohnmacht. DDR-Funktionäre sagen aus, Berlin: Verlag Neues
Leben 1992, 219.
7 Helga Schultz/Stefan Kowal: Neue Grenzen - alte Nachbarn. Deutsche und Polen im Widerstreit von großer
Politik und regionaler Kooperation, in: Wagener, Hans-Jürgen/Fritz, Heiko (eds): Im Osten was Neues. Aspekte
der EU-Osterweiterung, Dietz 1998, 191.
5In many cases the cooperation in the times of the open border (1972-1980) and today can be
determined to be continuous. In the Concert Hall of Frankfurt, German students play music
with music students from Slubice as they did before. The activists from the times of the first
border opening are today also involved in the development of German-Polish friendship in the
border region.


"Borders and Neighbourhood in Eastern and Central Europe. A Study of the Historic Development after World War II with the Case Study of the Oder-Neisse Region"

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