Here is a gushing and perceptive article from Spiegel Online on the wonders of Poland since the end of communism and the serene beauty of today’s Germany/Poland relationship.

Nice ending:

If old clichés have any traction at all anymore, it is in the vast Polish countryside, which lags behind urban development and remains caught up in bigotry and prejudice. A trip toward the Ukrainian border is a journey into a period many believed Poland had already left behind. The rule of thumb is that the farther one travels to the east, the worse the roads, the more decrepit the villages, the higher the unemployment and the more grinding the poverty.

This is where the Kaczyski (sic) party recruits its potential voters, about 20 to 25 percent of the electorate. Tough government spending cuts tend to be particularly devastating in these hinterlands — such as the recent move to raise the retirement age to 67. Poland isn’t completely out of the woods yet.

Cars are lined up for several kilometers at the border with Ukraine, which is co-hosting the European Football Championship with Poland. Each vehicle is checked, and the wait is about 24 hours. Those who hope to be processed more quickly can expect to pay bribes. It’s as if the German-Polish border had moved 600 kilometers to the east since Poland joined the EU and the visa-free travel Schengen zone, complete with the wild markets, and smuggling of cigarettes and liquor. Ukraine is now to Poland what Poland once was to Germany — it is viewed as the slightly backward eastern neighbor.

Furthermore, just as Berlin behaved as Warsaw’s generous advocate, Warsaw is now playing the benevolent sponsor of Kiev. Unfortunately, since the end of the Orange Revolution, official Ukraine is no longer necessarily interested in shifting further to the West.

But the people are voting with their feet. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians live more or less continuously in Poland, taking advantage of opportunities in the low-wage sector. They take care of children and the elderly, help out in hospitals and toil on construction sites in booming Polish cities. The migrant workers do not have a poor image in Poland. And many of them, upon returning to Ukraine from Poland, believe that they have seen the Promised Land — so clean, so efficient and so future-oriented.

Poland – where ‘Europe’ not only means something great, but also works in practice?