Over the years, much effort has gone into building symbolic bridges between Poland and Germany. Yet along the Oder and Neisse, there is still a lack of actual bridges connecting the two countries.
In the impressive new lobby of the Poznań University of Technology, Marek Woźniak, the long-serving Marshal of the Greater Poland region, presents Dietmar Woidke, the long-serving Minister-President of Brandenburg, with an elaborate three-masted sailing ship enclosed in a bottle. In this symbolic gesture, the Polish politician is handing over the leadership of the Oder Partnership to his German counterpart.
The Oder Partnership brings together four Western Polish voivodeships and four Eastern German federal states. In addition to border regions such as Brandenburg, Saxony, Lower Silesia, Lubusz, and West Pomerania, the partnership also includes Berlin and Greater Poland. Established in 2006, when Woźniak was already serving as marshal, the initiative emerged during a period when everything seemed to be moving in a positive direction: border barriers and checkpoints were disappearing, and the small world of the borderlands was becoming increasingly open and interconnected. But does the Oder Partnership resemble the elegant sailing ship that politicians exchange as a symbol of leadership? And does it still have wind in its sails?
Around 21 million people live within what strategic governance terminology calls the “area of interconnectedness” — the extended border region stretching from the Karkonosze Mountains to the Baltic Sea. The main instruments of cooperation between regions on both sides of the border are European cross-border cooperation funds such as Interreg.
These funds have financed countless cycling paths along both sides of the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, modernization of local roads, and even the construction or reconstruction of two smaller bridges across these rivers, though these served mainly for tourism-related purposes. Also, Polish-German village festivals and exhibitions were organized. However, it was much more difficult to work on developing joint approaches to areas such as emergency services, healthcare, and firefighting. Coordinating the different legal and financial systems of the two neighboring countries is no easy task. In other words, bridges were built — but mostly symbolic ones.
A major shock came in 2020 with the closure of borders during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tens of thousands of cross-border workers found themselves stuck in queues at border crossings. Towards the end of the pandemic, mayors, members of parliament, and regional leaders from both sides drafted the so-called Borderland Manifesto in Słubice, demanding that Berlin and Warsaw take local perspectives into account when making such decisions. All for nothing - not long afterwards, border controls returned, this time under the pretext of migration management. Germany introduced them first, followed by Poland.
Today, local governments on both sides of the Oder and Neisse maintain relatively stable political and administrative relations. Their political orientations are broadly aligned and even endured during the difficult years of Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) government. On the German side, coalitions led by the SPD and CDU remain dominant, while Western Polish regions are largely governed by the Civic Coalition. At this level, the German-Polish dialogue tends to be more open and constructive than at the national level. Relations between Berlin and Warsaw, in contrast, remain “somewhat constrained,” as Knut Abraham, the German Federal Government Coordinator for Cooperation with Poland, puts it.
From Cobblestones to Commerce
But what does life in this “area of interconnectedness” look like on a human level?
The 21 million people living on either side of the border are certainly less alien to one another than they were 35 years ago. Consider how things began: on 8 April 1991, the first day of visa-free travel for Poles — more than two months before the signing of the Treaty of Good Neighbourship — a bus arriving from Gorzów was hit by cobblestones at the border crossing in Frankfurt (Oder). The lead singer of a band traveling on the bus suffered minor injuries.
The attackers were German neo-Nazis who caused disturbances at the border for several days. Yet skepticism and suspicion toward the arrival of “Polacken” extended well beyond extremist circles in the anxious society of Eastern Germany following the reunification. During the 1990s and early 2000s, violence against neighbors from across the border was not uncommon. Some Poles, for their part, responded through theft and petty crime in Germany.
Those days are now firmly in the past. Today, Poland is Brandenburg’s largest export destination and ranks among the top export markets for Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Germany, meanwhile, remains Poland’s most important export market. The average resident of Eastern Germany’s border regions is likely to know a Pole as a colleague — in Brandenburg, for example, Polish workers account for nearly five percent of all employees. Germans regularly cross the border to buy fuel, enjoy a good Polish schnitzel, or spend their holidays on Poland’s Baltic coast. They also admire their neighbors’ work ethic and economic success.
Yet genuine friendships remain relatively rare, and few Germans learn Polish. The language is taught in only a handful of schools in Eastern Germany.
Close economic ties, therefore, do not automatically translate into closer social bonds. This preliminary conclusion was also reached by researchers at the Western Institute (Instytut Zachodni), whose survey among residents of Greater Poland and Lubusz regions was presented during the Oder Partnership Summit in Poznań.
The main drivers of cross-border social integration are mixed Polish-German families, Poles living in Germany, and, to a lesser extent, cross-border commuters. Around 75,000 Polish citizens live in the three Eastern German states, while Berlin is home to another 100,000 Poles and people of Polish descent. In so-called twin towns such as Guben–Gubin and Görlitz–Zgorzelec, the Polish-German “bubble” is particularly visible. It is this community that gives life to the twin-city concept, which local authorities have long embraced as a development strategy. Given the depopulation challenges faced by many border regions, there are few viable alternatives.
Meanwhile, Eastern Germany has increasingly recognized the opportunities arising from Poland’s economic success. At this year’s East German Economic Forum in Bad Saarow, where leading figures from politics and business gather annually, Poland and the Czech Republic found themselves in the center of attention for the first time. Economist Marcin Piątkowski made a strong impression with his proposal to establish a joint labor and corporate tax framework for AI-sector companies spanning Eastern Germany and Poland. Manuela Schwesig, Minister-President of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and once a supporter of Nord Stream 2, advocated for a “strategic cooperation with Poland and the democratic Baltic region.”
Back in Poznań, aboard the symbolic three-masted ship that Brandenburg’s minister-president is expected to steer, participants once again emphasized the strength and promising future of the Polish-German economic area centered on the Oder River. The new campus of the Poznań University of Technology reflects these ambitions. According to Polish Ambassador Jan Tombiński, the conversation has shifted from “reconciliation” to “resilience, competitiveness, and infrastructure.” There is, however, a major catch: infrastructure itself. Or, more specifically, the lack of it. Real bridges made of concrete and steel.
Kaiser-era railways — no electricity included
“It is frustrating that we have failed to create a network capable of meeting local and European needs,” says Henryka Mościcka-Dendys, Poland’s Government Coordinator for Cooperation with Germany. Dietmar Woidke agrees: “The state of infrastructure frustrates us. It has improved over the past twenty years, but it has not kept pace with economic development.”
Most railway connections between Germany and Poland still reflect conditions dating back to the post-war period, when Soviet authorities dismantled second tracks and transported them to the USSR as reparations. Today, only two efficient rail crossings are available for long-distance passenger and freight traffic. One of them, at Frankfurt (Oder), is regularly disrupted by construction work on the line to Berlin.
Whether it is railway expansion or chronic congestion on the main motorway linking Germany and Poland, infrastructure projects proceed at a snail’s pace — if they proceed at all. Many plans remain stuck in drawers.
The somewhat ostentatious model ship therefore symbolizes ambitions that the Oder Partnership itself cannot deliver. The necessary decisions must be taken by Warsaw and, even more importantly, Berlin. And beyond economic considerations, there is now another compelling reason to invest: defense, for which Germany has even established a dedicated special fund.
During the past decade, only one Polish-German railway line has been comprehensively modernized: the Horka–Węgliniec route connecting Wrocław with Leipzig and Magdeburg. Construction work on the double-tracking and electrification of the Berlin–Szczecin line has already been underway on the German side for more than five years, while completion on the Polish side is not expected before 2030. Long-discussed electrification projects on the Berlin–Wrocław and Dresden–Zgorzelec routes continue to lack funding from Berlin.
Perhaps the most frustrating case is the Berlin–Kostrzyn–Gorzów railway project, which has been blocked by consecutive Berlin governments for years. The route would provide an alternative connection between the two capitals and is urgently needed, given that the Frankfurt (Oder) corridor is already overloaded.
At the end of 2025, Poland’s Deputy Minister for Railways, Piotr Malepszak, even proposed constructing a high-speed rail line between Warsaw and Berlin. Germany’s transport minister did not respond.
“I do not understand this reluctance toward projects involving Poland,” Woidke says in frustration, addressing the Berlin government which clearly fails to see the needs of the eastern part of the country.
What can regions and federal states do when they all agree that the current situation is unsustainable? Once again, they have issued an appeal to the governments in Warsaw — and above all in Berlin — calling for the rapid expansion of rail connections.
Another pressing and long-standing issue is border controls. Also here, local authorities on both sides of the Oder River are united — and equally powerless. They continue to call for their abolition.
“There are 21 million of us; we could create our own country,” joked Lubusz Marshal Sebastian Ciemnoczołowski during a discussion at the Oder Partnership meeting. “I don’t actually want that,” he quickly added.
What he does want is something else for the Oder Partnership: money.
“We have been meeting for twenty years and delivering beautiful speeches, yet we still lack bridges, roads, and railway lines. We, the partners, finally need our own budget and powerful financing instruments — perhaps European ones — so that we can tackle these tasks ourselves. And we are capable of doing it.”
This article was prepared as part of a collaboration between Krytyka Polityczna and the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Warsaw. It was originally published on the Krytyka Polityczna website.
The views and conclusions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Heinrich Böll Foundation.