CENTRE FOR REGIONAL STUDIES OF HUNGARIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES DISCUSSION PAPERS Special OLD AND NEW BORDERLINES/FRONTIERS/ MARGINS East-Central European Regional Seminar Gyula, 9–12 October, 2008 Editor András Donát KOVÁCS Series editor Gábor LUX Pécs 2009 ISSN 0238–2008 ISBN 978 963 9899 17 9 © András Donát Kovács © Centre for Regional Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences 2009 by Centre for Regional Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Technical editor: Ilona Csapó. Language editor: Gábor Lux. Printed in Hungary by Sümegi Nyomdaipari, Kereskedelmi és Szolgáltató Ltd., Pécs CONTENTS Preface András Donát Kovács ..................................................................................................... 5 A brief essay on borders Bálint Csatári ................................................................................................................. 7 REGIONAL ASPECTS AND COOPERATIONS Geography of the Czech borderland Antonin Vaishar – Jana Zapletalová ............................................................................ 15 Are environmental conditions among factors behind new spatial patterns? Marek Degórski ............................................................................................................ 29 The regional structure and decentralisation of science in Central and Eastern European countries Gyula Horváth .............................................................................................................. 40 Regional planning and the co-operation in practice in Danube–Cris–Maros–Tisa Euroregion Gábor Nagy .................................................................................................................. 51 Changes in cooperation along the Hungarian and Slovak border István Mezei .................................................................................................................. 60 Bulgarian–Greek cultural-historical tourism corridors Maria Grozeva.............................................................................................................. 71 PROBLEMS AND NEW PROCESSES Problems of border regions in Bulgaria Chavdar Mladenov – Boris Kazakov ............................................................................ 81 Development of the new tourist space in the Polish Borderland Marek Więckowski ........................................................................................................ 89 Changes and spatial differentiation in Polish agriculture Roman Kulikowski ........................................................................................................ 98 Internal peripheries of socio-economic development in Poland Konrad Ł. Czapiewski – Krzysztof Janc ..................................................................... 109 Some factors of development of the underdeveloped border communities in Voivodina (Serbia) Imre Nagy – Romelić Jovan ........................................................................................ 122 The territory of Dobra Szczecińska municipality as an example of conflict between the functions of a border and suburban commune and an area of high natural value Marcin Mazur ............................................................................................................. 132 PREFACE Centre for Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences has organised the second East-Central European Regional Seminar – ECERS 2008 – in the city of Gyula, near the eastern border of Hungary. This conference was an important mile- stone of the co-operation between Polish and Hungarian researchers. The aim of the seminar was to support the initiative of Warsaw Regional Forums and expand the XVIth Polish-Hungarian Geographic Seminar. This meeting aimed to highlight different aspects, spatial issues and problems of East-Central European borders, and the complexity of borderlands. On the first day participants took a short visit to Szarvas, and after that to Békéscsaba, the Department of Great Plain Institute – HAS CRS. On the occasion of the opening session they discussed the role of Békés county and the city of Gyula in crossborder cooperation with local notables and experts. On the second day, there were twelve presentations about different regional and geographic approaches, which reflected innovative viewpoints. Most of the pre- senters talked about actual processes and conflicts of new spatial phenomena in EU countries, particularly crossborder opportunities, features of peripheral areas, envi- ronmental and social problems. They identified new opportunities of spatial de- velopment next to borderlands and talked about the unique potential of marginal areas. Some of the presentations were based on regional research; others were case studies or summaries of different pilot projects. During the presentations the importance of the environmental, cultural, touris- tic and transport functions of borders and the long term perspectives of these kind of areas were emphasised. The main conclusion of the conference was that the special geopolitical and geographical positions give advantages for these zones. Everybody agreed that – beyond the recent political paradigm – there is a need to create multifunctional areas concerned with local cohesion, economic and ecologi- cal sustainability for these border-lands. This sustainability must be based on coop- eration and partnership. On the third day participants visited the city of Arad and met Romanian ex- perts. They took a short trip to the transformed downtown and visited one of the most prosperous industrial parks of Romania. The participants were: Marek Degórski, Roman Kulikowski, Marek Wieck- owski, Konrad Czapiewski and Marcin Mazur from the Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, Polish Academy of Sciences; Maria Grozeva, Boris Kolev, Chavdar Mladenov, Boris Kazakov from the Geographical Institute of the Bulgar- ian Academy of Sciences; and Antonín Vaishar, from the Institute of Geonics, 6 ANDRÁS DONÁT KOVÁCS Czech Academy of Sciences, Ostrava. The Hungarian delegation was: Gyula Horváth, István Mezei, Erika Nagy, Gábor Nagy, Imre Nagy, Bálint Csatári, An- drás Donát Kovács from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Centre for Regional Studies. We hope that it was a really fruitful scientific workshop with useful discussions and colourful excursions close to the Hungarian–Romanian border. The seminar presented a good occasion for strengthening the collegial partner- ships. At the beginning of the first plenary session, we paid a one-minute silence to the memory of our honourable Polish colleague – Professor Andrzej Stasiak. The studies of the present volume are published with the intention to promote a better understanding of the phenomena and processes of new cross-border relations and their impact on the socio-economic and environmental development of East– Central–European countries. Kecskemét, May 2009 András Donát Kovács Secretary of ECERS A BRIEF ESSAY ON BORDERS BÁLINT CSATÁRI Introduction It was 25 years ago when I first participated on the 5th seminar of Polish and Hun- garian geographers in Pécs, in 1983. Since then I have organised others in several interesting topics (e.g. the last decade of state socialism, change of systems in CEE, and their rural aspects). All of them were performed with much data, and computer support. After 25 years, having found out the topic of this seminar, I decided to break this classical geographic tradition. I tried to create a geographic idea of border (limes in Latin) from another ap- proach. It has been motivated by personal stories. One; there had been a series on television called Game Without Borders (Jeux Sans Frontières). The town of Kec- skemét had succeeded well in this game. Few of us thought then that one could travel to Krakow from Kecskemét even without stopping at the 1000 years old border crossing point in 2008. Have the societies of CEE grasped already its significance? The other story is even more personal. We made a trip to the Eastern Tatra mountains with my English son-in-law. Coming down from Morskie Oko I tried to explain him that the creek on the right hand side used to be the Hungarian–Polish border for 1000 years. I realised he didn’t understand. That former border in the Tatra mountains has no relevance to an Englishman. My two examples highlighted that it’s worthwhile to examine borders according to a geographic way of thinking. Several approaches to geography in developed countries prove this. A dispute over this issue in the framework of a similar semi- nar could draw some attention. Let’s start by analysing two main problems. Border definition The definition of border carries different and on the other hand sophisticated meanings. Though the English language explains the definition of border in differ- ent ways (border, margin, frontier, barrier, etc.). In order to fold out this multiple meaning and give a general definition on border in a geographic sense, at least three clusters of border definition should be designated. 8 BÁLINT CSATÁRI Theoretical borders belonging to the first group exist and have a significant ef- fect on our life. These are in other words philosophical borders, or can be explained as borders of rules of human coexistence. Even “mental borders” is a correct defi- nition, for one exists in the world of our thinking. A part of these have a direct ef- fect on one’s acts and behaviour, and represent a significant share in behaviourist geography. If there’s a problem with these borders in a society like the CEE socie-