Although the date of the European Union’s expansion eastward has been changed more than once, there’s little doubt it will happen sooner or later. It is also certain that our biggest western neighbor, Poland, will join the EU. According to the latest term slated in Brussels, it is expected to happen in 2004. What does it mean for us? - It means that the present border between us and Poland along the Bug river will become a border between Ukraine and the European community.
Border Between West and East
In this connection, the Polish political establishment as well as the political elite of an entirely united Europe are looking for ways create this border rationally. To a rank-and-file European, everything that used to be the USSR is something «oriental», strange, obscure, often perilous, so he naturally wants to fence himself off with a new «Berlin wall». European «global» capitalists who usually don’t care much about national interests are extremely interested in the vast eastern markets, a bonanza long unheard-of in the civilized world. To the political elite, this post-Soviet east is above all a sphere of Russian influence which should never be taken lightly. That’s why the debate on the future of this border reveals two principal positions.
One is to fortify the EU’s eastern border in order to hold in check the invasion of illegal immigrants, smuggled goods and drugs flowing mostly from the east. This concept is supported mainly by small rich countries situated far from the border. The other position is diametrically opposite: the border should be as transparent as possible, with cheap and simple visas, in order to prevent a new «iron curtain» and keep people and goods moving. This version is promoted chiefly by candidates for EU membership that border on us immediately and whose budgets are largely replenished by trade with their eastern neighbors, also by the elite of the big rich countries where the above-mentioned global capitalists have a influence.
It’s no less important in this debate who exactly will build this border. But this question, apparently simple, has no definite answer. Poland rates 40th among the corrupt countries - it’s not Ukraine, of course, but such a level of corruption is too high not only for EU member-nations, but even for candidates. Europe will hardly let Poland alone take care of such a big and important part of its new eastern border. Moreover we must consider several public scandals in recent years where the Polish border-guards and customs were involved.
In addition, one more problem - what to do with the thousands of qualified German border-guards and customs officers when the border between Germany and Poland disappears. At present, it is the Germans who have the greatest experience in guarding the eastern border of the «Schengen zone». So the offices of «European authorities» are contemplating joint German-Polish patrols on the Polish-Ukrainian border. The author of this idea is Kurt Schelter, the Interior Minister of Brandenburg which shares a 250-km borderline with Poland. At first, Herr Schelter’s proposals were viewed as nonsense, but later they found quite a few supporters. This year, the Polish Interior Minister Marek Bernacky said in Brussels that after joining the EU Poland might agree to «Euro-patrols» on its eastern border.
Speaking about the Polish-German border, we should also mention the experience of integration between those nations which has become a basis for establishing border cooperation in various fields. For a long post-war period, Poland’s relations with Germany haven’t been much better than with Ukraine, but today they are considered to be the best in our entire common history.
At an official level, Ukrainian-Polish relations are considered very good, but in practice they are not: the difficult border, the absence of normal cooperation between border regions, the open historical «wounds» that every now and then trigger scandals between the nations. Talking about «good» Ukrainian-Polish relations today, we mean relations between Kiev and Warsaw, more exactly - between Kuchma and Kwasniewski. But that suits only those who travel by air. To the common citizens of both countries our relations don’t appear good at all on the 200-km frontier zone of Western Ukraine or the same zone in Eastern Poland where cases of hostility are frequent.
And crossing the border is a real ordeal for everyone who runs into the obvious bribery and boorishness. Another paradox is that a Ukrainian passport makes it more difficult to cross the «visa-free» Ukrainian-Polish border than the German-Polish border of the «Schengen zone».
German-Polish-Ukrainian Frontier
Several international conferences have taken place this year raising questions of a possibility to use the Polish-German experience in integration and border cooperation for improving relations between Ukraine and Poland. The majority of participants in such discussions are unanimous that this experience brings about no specific model, therefore only some of its particular precedents can be considered.
One of the early examples of «breaking the ice» in post-war relations between Poles and Germans was an open letter from the Polish Catholic clergy to their German «brethren in Christ» under the motto «We forgive and ask for forgiveness». This appeal took a long time to be answered, but it laid a foundation for further processes of integration and provided them with a credo.
If we look at the relations between the Greek-Catholic and Roman-Catholic churches which have the same leader - the Pope of Rome, we can see more conflicting than unifying positions. I believe it hurt the Polish Catholic clergy to watch the old Roman-Catholic churches in Western Ukraine being transformed into Greek-Catholic churches after 1989. But the Poles were quick to respond with a «pseudo-religious vendetta»: the Cathedral Church of Przemysl was not returned to the Greek-Catholics and its dome was destroyed, despite the Pope’s appeal. There are tables hanging in one of the Roman-Catholic churches in Przemysl which humiliate the Ukrainian state emblem and have words that offend all Ukrainians. The Catholic clergy insists on evicting married Greek-Catholic priests from Poland. Do all these facts lay a good foundation for Ukrainian-Polish dialog? Even though the recent visit [to Ukraine] by John-Paul II showed to all what a strong effect a friendly dialogue between the churches can produce.
There was a similar scenario with the conflict around the graves of UPA [Ukrainian Insurgent Army] soldiers in Polish eastern provinces and Polish war-time graves at Lychakivske cemetery [in Lviv, Ukraine] - the so-called «Eaglet cemetery». It was easy to predict the need to restore those graves. Back in 1988 the «Lion Society» of Lviv started tidying the Lychakivske cemetery - its members restored inscriptions on every tombstone. Later on, the «Monuments of Ukraine» magazine published in Kiev organized an action of search for war-time burial places during which dozens of graves were found - of Cossack, Petliura, UPA and German soldiers killed in both world wars and others. Nobody wanted to destroy anything - on the contrary.
That was the best moment to start a dialogue towards the future, but it was missed by both Poles and Ukrainians. Instead, the Polish company «Energopol» jointly with the Polish minority of Lviv began to restore the «Eaglet cemetery», without asking the public and local authorities. Ukrainians in Poland, in their turn, began to build graves for UPA soldiers without waiting for official permission. The result is known to everyone: works at the Lviv cemetery are suspended from time to time, and Ukrainian graves in Poland are vandalized. This is the easiest way today to create «a row» in Ukrainian-Polish relations.
One more important achievement made by the Germans and Poles is respect for their common historical and cultural heritage. Nowadays the Poles no longer destroy any German traces in their western, formerly German, lands. Instead, they are trying, together with the Germans, to rehabilitate the ruined cultural heritage which is now interpreted as part of their own common history and culture. They would like to make Ukrainians feel the same way about the former Polish lands which presently belong to Western Ukraine. The problem, however, is not the destruction of Polish traces by Ukrainians, but their carelessness about the preservation of an historical heritage - Polish, Ukrainian, Jewish and German. Arecent example is the Schultz frescoes taken illegally from Drgobych by the Israelis.
But the most bitter page of our relations is the «bloody story» of the Polish-Ukrainian conflict during WW II. The Poles can’t forgive the so-called «Volyn massacre» where the UPA was involved, and Ukrainians still remember the «Wisla action» - the sudden eviction of Ukrainians from their forefathers’ lands in the present East Poland to the east and the west. And if the veterans of the German Wehrmacht and the Polish Armija Krajowa have been able to shake hands in reconciliation, a gesture like that between AK and UPA is seen as impossible. Historians from both countries, encouraged by AK veterans and the Association of Polish Ukrainians, tried to start a dialogue on this subject, but after six joint conferences it was finally dropped. After that, the Polish «Gazeta Wyborcza» published an interview with the chairman of the Volyn [West-Ukrainian province] group of AK veterans entitled « We Sat Down to the Table to Pass a Sentence». So nobody was going to make it right!
This experience, together with others accumulated in the past decade, will be a serious obstacle to further attempts to reach a mutual understanding between Ukraine and Poland. What also makes it essentially different from the German-Polish situation is the fact that neither Ukrainians nor Poles have «a guilt complex» which has often determined Germans’ attitude toward the nations they have harmed. It is largely owing to this fact, coupled with Germany’s economic wealth, that the Germans have paid the bulk of expenses toward «overcoming mutual complexes and stereotypes». And who would pay for similar Ukrainian-Polish actions?
Since the border is supposed to be Ukrainian-European, the money could be paid by the European community. This is now the question then: to where exactly should it transfer the money? In European countries, border regions can be independent partners as they are independent to central governments. But in Ukraine, the money would have to go a long way from Kiev to a frontier district. We all know very well how money goes from the center to the regions and how financial aid from the West vanishes in Kiev. So if nothing has changed in this country by the time a United Europe reaches its border, the processes of «integration» and «border cooperation» are very likely to become another successful business for oligarchic Kiev
