Poland bows to EU and creates new 'iron curtain'

Poland has promised to hire thousands more border guards and spend millions on new helicopters and aircraft for its eastern frontier, in a deal designed to secure Europe's new eastern border with Ukraine and Belarus.

The pledge means a big investment in combating cross-border crime and illegal immigration along the 1,200km eastern Polish frontier – which some critics fear will become Europe's new iron curtain when Poland joins the EU.

Yesterday's represents a breakthrough in long-running negotiations between Brussels and 10 countries that expect to become members of the EU in 2004.

Already, Poland's frontiers are policed from 156 watchtowers, spaced at 20 to 30km intervals, by a national border guard equipped with helicopters and vehicles with night-sight and thermovision.

But with growing concern in EU capital cities about illegal immigration, drugs, human trafficking and terrorism, Poland has agreed to spend more cash on border control, concentrated on its northern and eastern frontier with Ukraine and Belarus. It will increase its border-guard force by 3,200 by 2006, hiring 5,300 professional frontier guards and 1,000 more civil servants while phasing out 3,100 conscripts deployed now. In all, the new force should number 18,000.

The authorities plan to buy and equip seven new helicopters, at a cost of €25m (£15m) and two light aircraft, costing €6.5m, over the next six years. On the northern and eastern border, already the object of a €16m upgrade, the distance between watchtowers will be dropped to 20km.

Despite the big investment from Warsaw, critics says the government has a tough job on its hands if it is to wipe out corruption and professionalise the border-guard service.

For ordinary Poles, the practical benefits will be limited because, until they join the Schengen system fully – probably not until 2007 – they will still need to show passports when entering an EU country.

Meanwhile, the focus on security has led to concern that those on the other side of the EU border will be condemned to live in poverty and political instability.

Poland's accession to the EU will mean tough new restrictions on travellers from Belarus and Ukraine who, from July next year, will need entry visas, expected to cost €14. And the cross-border restrictions could have a serious impact on the local economies, dealing an unwelcome blow to countries that are already poor.

Joanna Apap, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies, argued: "If we start creating a new Berlin Wall and, with it, the marginalisation of countries on the other side, we risk that these nations will be demotivated from trying to progress. They may also not co-operate on security with police."

The EU's border problem has already produced a rift with Russia over Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave that will be cut off from the rest of the country once Poland joins the EU. The EU has rejected demands for a sealed corridor through which Russians in transit could pass and argues that a system of multi-entry visas could be made to work.

Yesterday's deal marked the beginning of the final stretch in enlargement negotiations due to finish in December. All of the 10 nations likely to qualify – Cyprus, Hungary, Poland, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Malta, Slovakia, Latvia and Lithuania – have finalised agreements in at least 25 of the 30 areas in which they must meet EU standards. Poland, which was lagging last year, has closed a respectable 26 of the 30.