Poland guarding new EU border
By Robin Oakley
CNN European Political Editor
 |  Poland's border with Ukraine becomes the EU's new eastern border on May 1. |
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 The new EU border
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ON THE POLAND/UKRAINE BORDER (CNN) -- From May 1, when 10 more countries join the European Union, the EU will have a new eastern border -- what some are calling the new Iron Curtain.
Officials in Brussels worry whether Poland, which will become responsible for policing much of it, has the resources to foil the smugglers of drugs, weapons and illegal immigrants.
Poland's eastern border stretches from the Baltic to Lithuania, then past Belarus and Ukraine -- a 750-mile buffer between the comparative prosperirty of the West and the poverty of the former Soviet republics to the east.
Facing the task of keeping out illegal immgrants and potential terrorists, the Poles have doubled guard numbers and switched from a conscript force to professionals -- with a lilttle help from their new friends.
"There was great pressure from EU experts to improve border protection, but we were also very much aware that this should be done," says Josef Klimowicz, chief of the Polish Border Guard.
"Some money has come from our state budget and the EU has given 58 million euros. The money hasn't been wasted."
Gleaming new border posts and vehicles show how the funds have been spent. Watch towers are spaced at 20-kilometer (12-mile) intervals, and thermal imaging technology enables guards to track people trying to get across the border.
At the Dorohusk border crossing, traditional searches continue to intercept smugglers of drugs, cigarettes, vodka or pirated CDs. A nearby warehouse stuffed with confiscated goods bears testament to the scale of the operation.
"There have always been people traditionally making their living due to the differences in prices in the EU and in countries outside," says Commander Marek Dominiak. "I'm sure this will persist, it's something we cannot totally curb."
Border officials accept the need for a balance between protecting the community from criminals and keeping life tolerable for locals on both sides of the border.
They don't want to see travel made so hard for Ukrainians that the life is squeezed out of markets like the one in Lublin.
It isn't going to be, as some have called it, a new Iron Curtain. The Soviet Union's barbed-wire system was essentially there to keep the people of dependent states in.
But even so, in being handed responsibility for keeping smugglers of arms, drugs and illegal immigrants out of the EU along 750 miles of eastern border, the Poles are taking on a massive task.
