Barriers in Development of Cross-Border Cooperation

Abstract

The author of the article presents the realities of cross-border cooperation, which takes place on Polish borderlands. He defines the term of borderland from the angle of cross-border cooperation and discusses the most important tasks which are related to the process. He focuses on the barriers, which limit the efficiency of Polish cross-border cooperation with adjacent countries. The subject of his utmost consideration is the eastern borderland, because it concentrates institutional, infrastructural and social problems, which limit the cooperation of Poland with Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Russia. The author notices that countries cooperating with Poland are also to blame for inefficient cross-border cooperation on Polish eastern borderland. The main reason of such a situation is a considerable infrastructural and organizational retardation of these countries. Presented barriers let us notice that cooperating countries have to face a challenge of laborious work of multidimensional dimension. The author also emphasizes the necessity of mental change among the people living on borderland as a method of breaking barriers concerning cross-border cooperation.