EU must avoid the pitfalls of history as it extends its borders

World View: 'Borders are history's scars." This point, made by a Dutch researcher at a conference comparing Ireland's border with others in Europe, came to mind in Krakow last weekend at a meeting on how the forthcoming enlargement of the European Union will affect relations with Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova.

The major question is whether these new borders will constitute a new dividing line on the continent. Will they be inclusive or exclusive, open or closed, soft or hard, porous or imporous?

These are important issues for political leaders and citizens of the new neighbouring states joining the EU - the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. They were all represented by writers and artists, cultural operators, journalists and public officials at this meeting, organised by the European Cultural Foundation and the Villa Decius Foundation in Krakow. Both are devoted to inter-cultural dialogue in Europe, under the overall theme "Enlargement of minds", as the EU moves its borders and finds new neigbours.

The difficulties involved were vividly brought home by a Romanian speaker. He described the paradox that while borders between the accession states and their neighbours opened up in the period after 1989, with large (and beneficial) movements of people and goods, they are now being closed again as the new Schengen borders are introduced, along with high technology visa regimes. This means that Poles and Ukranians, Romanians and Moldovans, Latvians and Belarussians will find it more difficult to meet and trade in coming years, unless very determined efforts are made to keep the borders open.

Another paradox is the assumption in western Europe that central and eastern European states have a common cultural and social ethos based on a good knowledge of one another, is simply mistaken. Neither the Visegrad states (the Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians and Poles) nor the wider group were familiar with one another during the Stalinist period. They say they related to the Soviet empire in hub-and-spoke fashion, rather than to each other, as part of a deliberate divide-and-rule strategy. They are only now breaking down these barriers, partly by rediscovering older historical and cultural entanglements. In contrast, the (voluntary and forcible) movement of peoples within the Soviet Union was on a much larger scale.

Thus one of the organisers, a Pole, said she was struck by the friendliness, even the intimacy, of the encounters at this meeting compared to another she attended involving the Balkan states. There the hostilities and suspicions had been palpable and visible, whereas in Krakow poets and film-makers spoke of love, mutual identities and the realisation that they have much to share culturally and socially. Part of her identity as a Pole is Russian, she said - the other as part of the self. Another participant, a Russian Jewish research engineer based in Siberia, has recently translated the great Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz into Russian.

An important distinction between cultural and civic identity helped to make sense of these moving borders and their consequences for the vast region involved. Russia and Ukraine are part of cultural Europe; but they have no prospect of joining the civic entity of the European Union for decades, according to analyses presented to this conference.

In realisation of this the Commission published an important paper earlier this year: Wider Europe-Neighbourhood: A New Framework for Relations with our Eastern and Southern Neighbours. It says "enlargement will change the shape of the EU's political and social relations with other parts of the world", in particular with the 385 million inhabitants of Russia (149 million), Ukraine (49 million), Belarus (10 million), Moldova (4.3 million) and with 10 Mediterranean states to the south.

It insists new dividing lines must not be drawn in Europe and that stability and prosperity must be promoted across the new borders of the EU. A "friendly neighbourhood - a 'ring of friends'" - must be developed, "with which the EU enjoys close, peaceful and co-operative relations". To this end these countries should be offered "a stake in the EU's internal market and further integration and liberalisation" to promote the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital. Special funds and financial instruments must be developed for these purposes.

This conference forms part of this wide initiative, in an effort to enlarge cultural dialogue and imagination. Bringing together representatives of all the countries involved, including alternative views, gave a real opportunity to realise the rich diversity these societies can contribute - and to hear their voice (both critical and engaged) directly. There was detailed discussion of how greater cultural interaction can help prevent new dividing lines being drawn and a number of practical proposals for the Commission's attention.

After a decade's funding by the Soros Foundation and other private sources, many of the organisations involved are feeling pressure as such resources are gradually withdrawn. Alternatives must be found if their work is to continue and if it is as important as the Commission believes.

The burden of keeping borders open and inclusive cannot be borne only by small cultural organisations. Several speakers referred to the bad image eastern Europe has in the western part of the continent. Real or misplaced fears of mobile crime, mafias, mass migration across the new borders will help to keep them closed and exclusive, cutting off the new EU states from their neighbours.

It will therefore take a major political effort to keep the borders relatively open, rather than the boundaries of a fortress Europe. Ukraine looms large in this politics. Without it, Russia cannot be an empire again, argues the US-Polish geopolitical strategist Zbigniew Brezhinski; with it, that neo-imperial vision can be restored. It is widely assumed Vladimir Putin wants to do just that with Ukraine, Modova, Belarus and other former Soviet states.

Others dispute that this must be a zero-sum game. The Russian political scientist Alexei Miller says we must imagine eastern Europe anew and differently by including these four states in it and working to do that, with new pan-European organisations if necessary. New historical scars can be avoided.