DOROHUSK (Poland): Polish border guard Colonel Andrzej Wojcik beams as he shows off Land Rovers, night vision cameras and bullet-proof vests neatly labelled with a European Union tag. His beefed-up, trained force is using the equipment, funded along with a new computer system by the EU, to guard a stretch of Poland’s 1,200 km eastern border, which for a year now has been part of the enlarged bloc’s external frontier.

Fears that borders would prove porous to organized crime, smuggled drugs, cigarettes and the trafficking of illegal immigrants and sex slaves from countries of the former Soviet Union were rife in the run-up to last May’s enlargement.

But local and European law enforcement officials say the EU’s 3,000 km-long eastern frontier running through Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia has held up well.

“We are definitely on the winning side and the statistics show that. We are convinced we’re catching everything,” Wojcik said at the Dorohusk crossing in southern Poland to Ukraine.

More than 1,000 guards in that region routinely patrol the borders by foot, on helicopters, in vehicles fitted with night vision cameras and speed boats on the river Bug which forms most of the border here.

The EU says the newcomers are on track to meet tight control standards set by the bloc’s Schengen agreement which effectively eliminated internal borders among most Western members of the Union.

The new members, along with Britain and Ireland, still carry out simplified border controls but have dropped routine customs checks at the borders with other EU countries.

“The Commission is of the opinion that the new member states are well on track to securing these (external EU) borders,” EU Justice and Home Affairs spokesman Friso Roscam-Abbing said.

“They have two more years to go (before Schengen), but it’s already quite impressive how the member states have undertaken an extremely difficult job.”

German security officials say they have seen no increase in crime since EU expansion, adding that eastern European criminal gangs had already established themselves in the west during the 1990s.

HUGE TASK: The fight against border crime began in earnest after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, allowing the former east bloc’s citizens and a massive inflow of goods to travel across border crossings built to handle just a trickle.

The ex-Soviet Baltic states had to build their border posts from scratch but even for Poland the task was tough. Dorohusk now has 25 car lanes and handles 5 million people a year. In 1990 it was just a country path with a booth.

While all sides have benefited from increased trade, the flip side was a sharp rise in smuggling, human trafficking and ordinary crime. Corruption among badly trained and low paid border officials was rife.

The EU made clearing up the border situation one of the conditions before the countries could join the club and poured in millions of euros to beef up border training and equipment.

But these funds are not enough and more cash will flow once the EU budget for 2007-2013 is agreed on. In it, 9.5 billion euros ($12.3 billion) are earmarked for security, most of which will go to border controls and fighting illegal immigration.

The budget is not a done deal yet and newcomers hope not to be saddled with most of the costs after Germany dismissed the plan, saying countries with external borders should pay for them themselves.

As part of Schengen preparations, the newcomers have yet to implement two computer systems which will allow for the free flow of information on visas, wanted people and stolen goods.

Border agencies say they are still increasing their personnel and equipment. The Nadbuzanski region of southeastern Poland, which has a 460 km border with Ukraine and Belarus, opened its latest, and 17th, post just weeks after EU accession.

NO IRON CURTAIN: But despite tighter security and the introduction of a visa regime for Poland’s non-EU eastern neighbours, a bustling legal trade continues as Ukrainians and Belarussians buy consumer goods in Poland to sell back home.

Roman, who crosses the border several times a week and buys used cars in Poland, says little has changed since last May.

“There is no problem and the visas are free,” the 22-year-old Ukrainian said, leaning out from his car on one of the Dorohusk lanes.

Border agencies say the visa system helps fight smuggling as traders worry about losing their visas, and therefore their revenues, and take across only what is allowed. The Baltic states had already introduced such visas prior to EU entry.

Small-time traders like Roman may be helped if new EU legislation is passed allowing people living in the border regions of countries such as Russia, Ukraine and Belarus to get multi-entry long-term visas free of charge.

“I wouldn’t say this is another Berlin Wall here, an Iron Curtain,” Wojcik said. “We make things easy for honest travellers. But not for the criminals.”—Reuters