Poland: As Poles get ready to vote on EU entry, Derek Scally reports from the Union's eastern border
The scene has the air of a Cold War thriller about it. On a deserted bridge, a man is forcibly transferred from one vehicle to another and the two vehicles speed off in opposite directions, into separate countries. Despite the John le Carré overtones, however, the exchange of a homeless drunk from a German to a Polish ambulance is just one of the everyday bureaucratic headaches for the authorities in Görlitz-Zgorzelec, the city that straddles Germany's south-eastern border with Poland, the eastern border of the EU.
City politicians and locals hope that Polish voters will decide in favour of EU accession at their referendum this weekend, if only to bring an end to time-consuming and costly bureaucracy as a result of a quirk of history.
Mr Ulf Großman, the deputy mayor of Görlitz, hopes that Poland's EU accession will be the crowning event in a decade of bridge-building and a crucial step in the normalisation of relations between the two cities.
"Everything that is normal for other cities, here is abnormal," he says.
The abnormal became normal in Görlitz when the Potsdam Agreement of May 1945 redrew Germany's borders, establishing the River Neisse as one of its eastern borders with Poland.
The river that made the city a major trading centre in the Middle Ages was now a scar dividing it in two: Görlitz and Zgorzelec. It was only after the fall of the Iron Curtain that relations between the two countries were normalised and Germany recognised its post-war border with Poland.
Over a decade later, the locals have adapted to the new situation with the pragmatism typical of people in border areas. Germans began flocking to Poland for cheap petrol, food and haircuts, the Poles brushed up their German and went over the border looking for work and electrical goods.
The two city governments lead the way in building cross-border links, adopting the name "European City Görlitz-Zgorzelec" five years ago. The two cities now have all manner of cross-border co-operation, from a cross-border bus service to Polish-German schools and kindergartens.
Last summer, the border guards even turned a blind eye when two pub owners, one German and one Polish, built a temporary bridge across the river to connect their watering holes, letting locals enjoy German and Polish beer in the no-man's-land between the two countries.
"Suspicions are vanishing and people are much more curious and full of goodwill," said Mr Großman. "German pensioners who were expelled, people you'd think would be the most difficult group, are anxious to move on. Recently I was even contacted by a group of Polish war veterans who wanted to meet their German counterparts."
City politicians on both sides agree that Poland's accession to the EU would be a boost for the area, putting an end to wasteful bureaucracy and increasing its current limited economic appeal to industry. Open borders would free up further cross-border trade and cut the truck waiting times at the checkpoints that can sometimes rise to 18 hours.
The close ties between Görlitz and Zgorzelec have neutralised many of the fears spread by Polish anti-EU campaigners. Daily contact and cross-border traffic mean that post-accession scare stories spread by populist and ultra-Catholic politicians in Poland, from a German land grab to general moral degeneration, carry little weight here.
"Personally I will vote yes on Saturday. We need someone to keep an eye on our politicians in Poland - they've become as crooked as those in Ukraine," says Mr Peter Gladala, a mobile phone store manager in his 30s.
"But nobody here is expecting overnight change - it will be like Ireland and take 25 to 30 years," he says, adding that it will be difficult to get the 50 per cent turnout necessary to carry the vote.
Mr Slawek Kleczar, the 28-year-old owner of the internet cafe around the corner, has a different view. "I am not in favour of the EU because it is all about money, laws and taxes. Poland will just become a highway for shipping goods across Europe and gain nothing," he says.
The contrast between the two halves of what was once a single city are startling, and it's a gap that has widened in the last decade. While the buildings in Zgorzelec remain run-down and the streets are in a poor state of repair, Görlitz has undergone a massive restoration programme to re-emerge as one of Germany's most beautiful cities, a stunning embarrassment of architectural riches. But even the restoration work cannot distract from the many empty shops and apartments and an unemployment rate of 24 per cent. Also, despite the many cross-border projects, few people in either city speak the language of the other.
Ms Ilone Fiedler, like many residents of Görlitz, has no friends over the border and only goes to Zgorzelec for petrol and the weekly shopping.
"I hope Poland votes for the EU because they won't get the kind of help they need from anywhere else. They weren't as lucky to have a rich brother in the west like we did here in Germany," she says.
Few people in the town have any time for scare stories from conservative politicians that the area will be swamped with cheap labour from the East, she says. "It's ridiculous to say that. Those who wanted to work in Western Europe are long since here, legally or illegally," says Ms Fiedler.
Her friend Ms Petra Schoknecht believes that people on both sides are quite realistic about EU accession and know that the changes will be slow."History isn't made up of big steps,"she says, "but many small steps."