Poland to (temporarily) restore internal Schengen borders

Whoever said that the government of Poland is prone to over-react?


islamabad.msz.gov.pl/en/news/control_on_interior_schengen_borders_restored

I think that they did the same during football championship.

cop19.gov.pl


So, Poland must be Eastern Europe if Poland's own govt website says so in its own text. I thought PL was central Europe as so many Poles insist.

• 
  Eastern European in the Poland government website text
  

Poland is in Central Europe.
The UN, however, doesn't have a category for Central Europe. They categorise Europe into Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western regions only.


Erm, no.

There are lots of UN-related websites mentioning Central Europe, however. Here's just one of many:
unep.org/roe/WesternandCentralEurope/tabid/54057/Default.aspx
Google for the others.


Perhaps you should contact the PL govt website above's webmaster then, and correct him or her !

A bit of both really. Central European in economy and religion, Eastern European in food, drink, culture, politics. In architecture, language and agriculture, a bit of both. There are threads on this.


Very bad news here. It means they must be expecting something to happen. A few years ago they closed a couple of crossings during Hansa Day as pure sabre-rattling from the ducks' government. If they're doing this now, there must be a very specific reason.

Central Europe is a definition and it exists. Mitteleuropa exists and not only on ancient railway carriages. It corresponds in a big way with the Visegrad idea.

Central Europe connects sociologically, culturally, historically to Western Europe.

We've had this discussion many times before, folks. The mindset in the west was and still is that Poland - like all other former Warsaw Pact countries - is a part of Eastern Europe. Both geographically and culturally. Even the citizens of the former GDR are considered "east" by most of their West German counterparts. I believe that the generations which can remember pre-1989 times have to pass away first before anything will change in the heads of the people.

Agreed.

The real issue is why they're buggering about with Schengen. At Okecie most of the gates are the Schengen side of the barrier - what are they going to do, put up a whole new set of passport booths or just use the non-Schengen bit???

If so, expect delays and crowds,

Are full border controls even legal for a Schengen member? I vaguely remember the Danish attempt a few years back.

I can speak fairly authoritatively on this subject, as the issue of Schengen and borders is a personal interest of mine.

What will happen in practice is that Schengen is suspended, but they will not control everyone. There will likely be a visible presence at key points (for instance, the escalator exit from the Schengen zone in Okęcie) - and that presence will likely be semi-permanent, but there's no way that everyone will be controlled. On the land borders, you'll almost certainly see areas set up for border control at the main crossings (Swiecko, Kudowa-Slone, etc) - but again, these won't be systematic and it's likely that they will pull people into areas specifically for the purpose rather than checking everyone.

This picture (although a bit small) shows it well -

It's highly unlikely that there will be even a visible control at the vast majority of border crossings. I'm going up to the border this weekend, so I'll check the situation on the ground and report back. These controls aren't uncommon - I've been stopped several times on the German-Polish border.


According to Schengen law, it's allowed to suspend Schengen for up to 30 days based on a risk to security - in practice, no-one (not even the Danes) have ever suspended Schengen completely to the point of outlawing border crossings anywhere except at approved points.

Where will they get the staff from to do the checks?

What's not often mentioned is that when the checks were abandoned at the border, very few people were actually made redundant - what mostly happened was that they were redeployed in different areas, and they have plenty of "placówki" still operational. For instance - joint patrols are common with the Germans, and as far as I'm aware, plenty of staff are trained in both passport control and patrolling. If I remember rightly, at the same time as controls were abolished on the southern/western borders, they beefed up numbers on the eastern/northern borders.

You'll often see the Straz Graniczna lurking near the German border, and it's quite common to see them patrolling in places like Szczecin and Kostrzyn train stations. Mobile checks don't take much in the way of manpower - usually just one man to flag down cars and another to do the checks.

But - of course resources are limited, which is why Schengen won't be suspended totally. I forget the exact number, but before Schengen, there were something like 90 active border crossings with Slovakia/Czech Republic/Germany - and many more have been opened since then. A total closure is impossible - they will simply focus on the most likely places for troublemakers.

I suspect the only time we will see any significant presence on the border will be next weekend and on Tuesday.

At the Swiecko border crossing there are always people randomly being stopped, I have been stopped a few times when driving in my German Reg car.

Not been stopped in my UK registered car though.

I am driving back through on the 19th Nov so hopefully there are no delays.

I've seen guards walking alond the platform there.

Road checks don't worry me, but I either fly or go by train Warsaw/Berlin at least monthly and much prefer it without controls.

I suspect they'll be looking mostly for potential protestors.