- Title: POLAND/UKRAINE: VISAS: POLAND TIGHTENS BORDER CONTROLS WITH EASTERN NEIGHBOURS.
- Date: 2nd October 2003
- Summary: (EU) SHEGINI BORDER-CROSSING, UKRAINIAN-POLISH BORDER, UKRAINE (SEPTEMBER 29, 2003) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. GV: UKRAINIAN AND POLISH FLAGS AT SHEGINI BORDER CROSSING 0.02 2. GV: CARS QUEUING FOR CUSTOMS AND BORDER CHECK 0.07 3. MV/GV: CUSTOMS OFFICER CHECKING CAR (2 SHOTS) 0.21 4. GV: BORDER OFFICER CHECKING CAR 0.30 5. GV: SIGN "RZECZPOSPOLITA POLSKA" ON POLISH TERRITORY 0.34 6. GV: UKRAINIANS WITH BAGS CROSSING FROM THE POLISH SIDE 0.43 7. MV: BORDER GUARD STAMPS PASSPORT 0.49 8. CU: CLOSE UP OF PASSPORT 0.54 9. MV: PEOPLE QUEUING TO CROSS INTO UKRAINE 0.59 (EU) MOSTYSKA, NEAR UKRAINIAN-POLISH BORDER, UKRAINE (SEPTEMBER 30, 2003) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 10. GV: WIDE OF TOWN MARKET 1.04 11. MV: WOMAN SELLING GROCERIES 1.08 12. CU: VARIOUS OF POLISH-MADE PRODUCTS ON COUNTER 1.12 13. GV/MV: WOMAN LOOKING AT A JACKET (2 SHOTS) 1.20 14. (SOUNDBITE) (Ukrainian) MIKOLA BUTSYK, LOCAL BUSINESSMAN, SAYING: "Half of the population here has been living off various businesses with Poland. Nobody here has a job, so most people have been living off the border. Now, most of these people will lose income, the unemployment will rise and people who are already poor will become even poorer." 1.36 15. GV: EXTERIOR OF POLISH SECONDARY SCHOOL 1.43 16. CU: SIGNS READING "MOSTYSKA SECONDARY SCHOOL" IN UKRAINIAN AND POLISH 1.48 17. MV/PAN/GV: WIDE OF CLASSROOM 1.59 18. CU: CLOSE UP OF UKRAINIAN AND POLISH LANGUAGE TEXTBOOKS 2.04 19. MV: GIRL WRITING ON A BLACKBOARD 2.09 20. (SOUNDBITE) (Ukrainian) VERONIKA, TENTH GRADE STUDENT, POLISH- BORN IN UKRAINE, SAYING: "To join the European Union, Ukraine has to improve its economy. It has to try hard so that our people can work and live better. We live in a very hard conditions now and we want to have an opportunity to travel (to Poland) without visas". 2.27 (EU) LVIV, UKRAINE (SEPTEMBER 30, 2003) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 21. GV: CROWD OUTSIDE POLISH GENERAL CONSULATE QUEUING FOR VISA APPLICATION FORMS 2.33 22. (SOUNDBITE) (Ukrainian) ANDRIY, LVIV RESIDENT, ANSWERING THE QUESTION WHAT NUMBER HE IS IN THE QUEUE AND HOW LONG HE WILL HAVE TO QUEUE, SAYING: "My number is 874 and I have no idea how much longer (to queue)" 2.39 23. MV/CU: MAN READING OUT NAMES FROM THE LIST (2 SHOTS) 2.47 24. MCU: PEOPLE ENTERING THE CONSULATE BUILDING 2.50 (EU) KIEV, UKRAINE (RECENT - SEPTEMBER 26, 2003) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 25. MV/CU: SYLWESTER SZOSTAK, POLISH GENERAL CONSUL IN UKRAINE, WORKING AT HIS DESK (2 SHOTS) 2.59 26. (SOUNDBITE) (Polish) SYLWESTER SZOSTAK SAYING: "I think that an introduction of a visa regime will not pose any difficulties to businessmen, scientists, artists, others who were travelling to Poland. These people will go to Poland now with visas as easy as they used to go without them." 3.15 27. CU: POLISH VISA BEING PRINTED 3.19 28. MV: POLISH CONSULATE OFFICIAL EXAMINING PASSPORT 3.24 29. GV: PEOPLE INSIDE POLISH CONSULATE, SUBMITTING DOCUMENTS 3.29 30. MV/PAN: POLISH CONSULATE OFFICIAL HANDING OUT PASSPORT 3.38 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 17th October 2003 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: SHEGINI BORDER CROSSING, UKRAINIAN-POLISH BORDER, MOSTYSKA AND LVIV; UKRAINE
- City:
- Country: Ukraine Poland
- Reuters ID: LVAD3GJYZT7S1ZD0YHN71SYH8R29
- Story Text: Poland imposes visas on neighbouring former Soviet
republics Ukraine, Belarus and Russia as part of its
agreement to enter the EU.
Poland, due to become a member of the European
Union next year, launched a new visa regime with former
Soviet states Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, on Wednesday
(October 1).
The regime meets EU demands to tighten up a porous
border to drugs, immigrants and arms, but will hurt
thousands of families, traders and workers who have relied
on easy access to their more prosperous neighbour since the
collapse of the Soviet Union.
Poland spent about 85 million euros in EU aid since
1997 to provide its guards with night-vision devices,
off-road vehicles and training.
People in Mostyska, a town of about 10,000 just on the
Polish border, have enjoyed very close ties with Poland.
Many have relatives in the neighbouring country. Hundreds
earn money from trading cigarettes, alcohol or food
products in Poland. "Half of the population here has
been living off
various businesses with Poland. Nobody here has a job, so
most people have been living off the border. Now, most of
these people will lose income, the unemployment will rise
and people who are already poor will become even poorer,"
says Mikola Butsyk, shop-owner at a local market.
Introduction of visas have upset students of a Polish
school in Mostyska.
Veronika, a 10th grade student, says that visa regime
will make lives of people in her native town much harder.
"We live in a very hard conditions now and we want to
have an opportunity to travel (to Poland) without visas,"
says Veronica, sitting at her desk at a school which opened
last year thanks to financial aid from the Polish community.
A Pole born in Ukraine, Veronika, like many in Ukraine,
Belarus and Russia, now faces long queues to get visas
required to visit a country which was once her second home.
And so are frequent visits to many of her friends and
family who live just a few kilometres away in Poland, but
could just as well be living in France or Germany as now
she needs a visa to go and see them.
At the Polish consulate in Ukraine's western city of
Lviv, hundreds besieged the building way before the visa
regime was in place. Some spent night and day in noisy
queues just to get an application form. Then they queued
again to submit them.
Polish officials said they would do everything they
could to ease the process and hoped the initial panic would
subside.
"I think that an introduction of a visa regime will not
pose any difficulties to businessmen, scientists, artists,
others who were travelling to Poland. These people will go
to Poland now with visas as easy as they used to go without
them," says Sylwester Szostak, Polish general consul in
Ukraine.
But many in Ukraine disagreed, saying they feared
Ukraine would become a backwater, stuck behind an Iron
Curtain.
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