Suchergebnisse

This article addresses the issue of visa liberalisation between Russia and the European Union, which constitutes a key aspect of the parties' diplomatic cooperation. This work sets out to identify the main results of Russia/EU cooperation. The authors have conducted a brief historical analysis of this area of relations. The visa "regionalisation" is considered in the context of identifying the key actors of the EU-Russia negotiations: the Kaliningrad region, Germany, Poland, and Lithuania. In their analysis, the authors rely mostly on primary sources: intergovernmental agreements on simplified border traffic, border-crossing statistics for the Kaliningrad region in the framework of the local border traffic, expert interviews, and related analytic reports. Specifically, local border traffic is viewed as the most effective form of interaction in the field of visa regime simplification and border territory development. An assessment of the positions of key negotiators shows that local border traffic between the Kaliningrad region of Russia and the Polish border voivodeships is a success, which stresses the need for a prompt transition to a visa-free regime with the EU.

The article analyzes the development of cooperation between Russia's Kaliningrad region and Poland's northeastern voivodeships in 1991–2020. The authors conduct a brief historical analysis of regional sphere of international relations. This study compares two periods of introduction of programs aimed at the development of Polish- Russian CBC: years 1991–2014, and years 2014– 2020. The conducted analysis proved that CBC support programs are one of the important tools for the development of border areas. Importantly, the implementation of the Poland-Russia CBC Program 2014–2020 coincided with the deterioration of political relations: both on the bilateral level of Polish-Russian interstate relations and at the level of the European Union-Russia relations. However, this did not significantly affect the conditions for implementing the program and effective cooperation between local governments and non-governmental organizations.