Town-twinning as a factor generating international flows of goods and people – the example of Poland

Town-twinning is a form of Municipal International Cooperation (MIC). It enables local communities to share experience and innovation in the field of town and municipality management techniques and encourages people to follow the tendency to remove political barriers. It generates flows of goods and people as a part of an exchange initiated by local governments and organised with their assistance. In the past decade, the international cooperation of local governments in Poland generated mainly the exchange of information, goods and people with Western Europe and Scandinavian countries (64% of all links in 2001), mainly with Germany, France, Holland and Denmark. The main directions of goods and information flows were from highly developed countries to Poland. Only human (cultural) exchange was really bilateral. If we do not take into account the border cooperation with neighbouring countries, the institutional connection links with Eastern, Southern and Central Europe were very weak. This shows and confirms the dominance of parallel connections in this part of Europe, whose strength decreases going eastwards. These flows contributed to the integration of Poland with Western Europe. The most common barrier was lack of financial resources, and the most frequently chosen partners were richer ones. Private contacts with local leaders had the highest importance in linking the partners. This shows that the directions of twinned municipality exchanges are above all the result, and not the source, of existing social and economic relationships.

T To ow wn n--t tw wi in nn ni in ng g a as s a a f fa ac ct to or r g ge en ne er ra at ti in ng g i in nt te er rn na at ti io on na al l f fl lo ow ws s o of f g go oo od ds s a an nd d p pe eo op pl le e --t th he e e ex xa am mp pl le e o of f P Po ol la an nd d M Ma ar re ek k F Fu ur rm ma an nk ki ie ew wi ic cz z W Wr ro oc c l l a aw w U Un ni iv ve er rs si it ty y, , P Po ol la an nd d ABSTRACT Town-twinning is a form of Municipal International Cooperation (MIC).It enables local communities to share experience and innovation in the field of town and municipality management techniques and encourages people to follow the tendency to remove political barriers.It generates flows of goods and people as a part of an exchange initiated by local governments and organised with their assistance.In the past decade, the international cooperation of local governments in Poland generated mainly the exchange of information, goods and people with Western Europe and Scandinavian countries (64% of all links in 2001), mainly with Germany, France, Holland and Denmark.The main directions of goods and information flows were from highly developed countries to Poland.
Only human (cultural) exchange was really bilateral.If we do not take into account the border cooperation with neighbouring countries, the institutional connection links with Eastern, Southern and Central Europe were very weak.This shows and confirms the dominance of parallel connections in this part of Europe, whose strength decreases going eastwards.These flows contributed to the integration of Poland with Western Europe.The most common barrier was lack of financial resources, and the most frequently chosen partners were richer ones.Private contacts with local leaders had the highest importance in linking the partners.This shows that the directions of twinned municipality exchanges are above all the result, and not the source, of existing social and economic relationships.Les biens et l'information ont surtout été orientés vers la Pologne à partir de pays hautement développés.Seuls les échanges «humains» (culturels) ont été de réels échanges bilatéraux.Si l'on exclut la coopération frontalière avec les pays voisins, les rapports institutionnels avec l'Europe de l'Est, du Sud et l'Europe Centrale sont restés très limités.Ceci montre et confirme la prédominance de liens P robably the first recorded twinning links in Europe were established in 1918 between Brugg, Switzerland and Rottweil, Germany (Casagrande, cited in Zelinsky, 1991) or in 1920 between Keighley, Great Britain and Poix du Nord, France (Handley, 2001).Following World War II, the concept of town-twinning spread all over the world and was used as an effective tool in the process of peace and reconciliation, bringing together countries which had previously been locked in combat.One of the symbols is the quoted case of Montbéliard (France) and Ludwigsburg (Germany) town-twinning established in the 1950s (Burger and Rahm, 1996;Brzozowska, 1998).In 1951, the Council of Municipalities of Europe (now Council of European Municipalities and Regions) was set up to support the idea of twinning relationships.Similarly, since 1956 sister-city relationships have been actively encouraged on a national scale in the United States, following President Dwight Eisenhower's call for «people-to-people diplomacy».Consequently the organisation Sister Cities International was established in 1967 (Zelinsky, 1991;Schep et al., 1995).Intensive development of this form of cooperation in Western Europe was noted in the 1970s and 1980s.In 1995, the European Union had more than 7 thousand bilateral relations involving almost ten thousand municipalities, mainly French (2837 municipalities) and German (2485) (Lücke and Bellocchi, 1997).Bilateral municipal cooperation also developed in Asia with special activity of Japanese local govern-ments (Schep et al., 1995;Alger, 1997).After the Communist block break-up and the start of democratic change in Central and Eastern Europe, countries in this area joined in the twinning process.Partners from developed, democratic countries sought to encourage the growth of democracy and free market economy in the region (Handley, 2001).In Poland, international agreements of cities also appeared from 1950s, although until 1989 all the contacts were under control and restricted for ideological reasons by communist authorities.Only after the political transformation in 1989-90, the spontaneous and voluntary development of cooperation between local authorities began (Koaewin, 1993;Furmankiewicz, 2001).The establishment of international contacts between local authorities as part of different kinds of Municipal International Cooperation (MIC), like bilateral relations between municipalities (town-twinning, sister-cities), border associations and big international organizations is one of the facets of the ongoing globalization, of which the European integration is part.These links enable local communities to share experience and innovation in the field of town and municipality management techniques and encourage people to follow the tendency to remove political barriers.Additionally, they generate flows of goods and people as part of exchange programmes initiated by local governments and organized with their assistance.MIC is used to facilitate the exchange of technical expertise, to pro-

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Town-twinning as a factor generating international flows of goods and people  (Brzozowska, 1998;Ha³as and Porawski, 2003).This and other data from a few regional reports or publications have been used to conduct a poll.Based on the answers to this poll, I discuss the conditions which produced the dimension of cooperation and characteristic of mobility resulting from town-twinning, the scale and direction of this mobility, as well as the social, economic, environmental, cultural and political implications of exchange.It is also interesting to answer the question of whether the towntwinning connections result from human mobility or generate this mobility.
The effects of cooperation listed by the respondents were divided into non-material ones (gaining knowledge and information, also in the process of human exchange), and material ones (purchase of equipment, common investment, material gifts).Financial resources were classified according to the goals which they were used for, e.g. if the resources were used for spatial planning or development strategy, they were placed in the first category.If they were used to finance the building and equipping of offices, schools, or cultural centres, they were classified as material effects.
The first part of the paper shows the historical development of twinning in Poland and describes the current state of connections.Furthermore, the most important factors influencing the choice and the establishment of bilateral partnerships, as well as the obstacles to cooperation are analysed.In the next part of paper the material and non-material effects of cooperation are shown, with special attention given to people and goods exchange.Finally, the reasons for the level and the direction of the exchange are analysed.
148 Town-twinning as a factor generating international flows of goods and people

T TO OW WN N--T TW WI IN NN NI IN NG G I IN N P PO OL LA AN ND D
During the Communist period  there were no autonomous local governments, having legal status and powers specified by law.All municipal units and their authorities were part of the central government (Grochowski and Regulska, 2000).Additionally, citizens had no possibility to travel abroad freely, which limited international contacts and the MIC development.
Since the mid-fifties, the authorities of the largest Polish towns were allowed to initiate contacts with towns in Communist countries: Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the GDR or the USSR.In these contacts, cooperation focused mainly on ideological goals, was organised top-down and was controlled by representatives of the central government (voivodes).The reports from meetings of Polish delegations with those from other Communist-bloc countries included such topics as «socialist formation of youth», «methods of Party control of socio-economic and political life», «using the experience of sister parties in mastering the activities of Party organisations» or «achievements and problems of building socialism» (Trzcieliñska-Polus, 1997).Most of these contacts involved only meetings of officials and Communist Party activists.The lists of exchange participants were authorised by the Voivodeship (regional) Committees of the Polish United Workers' Party.There were only a few agreements with cities in Western Europe, mainly in Finland, which was under the political influence of the USSR.In the 1970s, the «policy of openness» provided opportunities for limited networking with towns in the democratic («capitalist») countries of Western Europe, mainly in Finland, Great Britain and Western Germany.In general, however, only limited youth exchange was possible (Laurent, 1991).Such contacts were still under central government control.There was often no real cooperation of the «appointed» towns (Koaewin, 1993).The closure of borders due to the political crisis in the early eighties, including the introduction of Martial Law (1981)(1982), caused all contacts to vanish, but after 1983 the cooperation slowly returned to the level from before 1980.In this period, contacts were generally limited to officials and legal organisations (e.g.Scout exchanges with the USSR) in the Communist bloc.
W. Zelinsky (1991) reports nearly 117 bilateral agreements of Polish municipalities with partners in 26 countries in 1988.As a result of political transformations in 1989/1990, after the first democratic local authority elections, municipalities became self-determining legal units.Since that time, international contacts could have been developed freely in a formal way with the wide participation of common citizens, and consequently the number of established agreements has grown spontaneously (see Figure 1).Most of them were new relations but in some cases former contacts were renewed (Markowiak, 1997;Furmankiewicz, 2001)

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In the period 1990-2000, local governments had much freedom in establishing contacts, and used this opportunity for para-diplomacy.For instance, in 1997, the local government of Kraków made an agreement with Grozny in Russia to show their support of the Chechnya independence idea (Kwiatek-So³tys, 2002).In 2001 the Law of 15 September 2000 concerning the principles of joining international associations of local and regional communities by units of territorial self-government came into force (Dziennik Ustaw  No 91 of 28.11.2000,pos.1009).The law states that units of territorial self-government can join associations and take part in them in the range limited by their tasks and powers, in compliance with Polish law, the international policy of Poland and its international commitments.According to the law, the minister of foreign affairs agrees to joining an association by a unit of territorial self-government or opposes it through an administrative decision.In the case of lack of consent to further membership, the unit has to leave the association.According to my research, at the end of 2001, there were at least 2153 active partnership relations between 734 Polish local governments and foreign partners.The foreign twin towns were mainly from European countries (95.8%).Most partners were from Western Europe (53.1%), Figure 1.The year of the first official contact or agreement with the foreign partner in the existing bilateral partnerships of Polish municipalities (for the 1735 partnerships giving this information).In border regions, euroregions and other foundations or agencies also offer municipalities their help in seeking individual partners (Marczuk and Palka, 2002).Local institutions helping to establish international contacts were schools, nongovernmental organisation like local country-lovers' associations, public institutions like fire departments, culture centres and others.Interestingly, there was quite a large number of answers quoting «chance» as the reason for choosing the partner.One of the cases is establishing an official partnership after receiving help by a German delegation visiting another place in Poland, when their car broke down in the area of the chance municipality (Syców-Malch).The «others» category was most frequently listed by municipalities in border The main obstacle to cooperation, reported by local governments in Poland, was the lack of financial resources (42% of all answers), which limited the possibility of common meetings and citizen exchanges, considered the main aim of cooperation.The other categories were listed in smaller numbers, only by up to 10% of all respondents.One of the most important obstacles was personal change in the partner's local authorities.Sometimes new authorities are not interested in sustaining partnerships, especially when the results of cooperation are not significant or when the relations at a citizen level are not well developed.This similarly applies to the category «lack of partner's activity».These three main categories of (above-mentioned) obstacles had similar significance in border and transregional cooperation (Figure 4).In transregional international town-twinnings, the barriers to cooperation were «long distance» and difficulties in communication due to the lack of knowledge of the partner's language.The language barrier was less frequently listed in border connections.The «investment risk» Figure 3. Factors supporting the choice and establishment of town-twinning networks.
Source: the author's research.Source: The author's own research.

T TH HE E R RE ES SU UL LT TS S O OF F C CO OO OP PE ER RA AT TI IO ON N
Referring to knowledge and information exchange (non-material effects of cooperation).Polish twinned-towns reported such a category of effects as «education, sport and recreation» (80% of all respondents), «culture» (74%) and «promotion of tourism» (45%) (Figure 5).The first two categories were connected mainly to human flows, e.g. the exchange of musical, cultural or drama groups, and the presentation of their achievements, or the exchange of children and youth.Referring to the material effects of cooperation, 156 bilateral networks (38.8% of all polled) reported on a minimum of one category of results.These were mainly with partners from Germany (88, i.e. 56% of all the reported material effects), Holland (12%), France (7.7%), Denmark (2.7%) and Sweden (2.3%).The most frequent effects belonged to such categories as «health care and rescue missions» (18% of all partnerships), «social problem solving» (15%) and «education, sport and recreation» (14%).These effects were reported more frequently in transregional cooperation (Figure 7).In border cooperation, the most common effects were in categories «transportation», «water, gas etc. supply» , «tourism» and «investment promotion».It is connected with physical links of border municipalities and greater social connec-  In the case of cooperation with Western European countries, goods flowed mainly to Poland.For the most part these were gifts for Polish local communities.In the category «health care and rescue missions» it was medical equipment for hospitals, ambulances, fire engines, rescue equipment etc. Frequently, it was secondhand equipment, but in Polish conditions it was often more modern then that used by Polish institutions or the only available equipment of this type.In the category «social problem solving» these were financial resources for redecoration, computers, furniture and other equipment for orphanages, retirement homes etc., as well as gifts for the poor etc.The category «education, sport and recreation» involved help with redecoration, equipment for schools, sport centres, textbooks for foreign language teaching etc.In several cases, educational or social centres were established thanks to the know-how and financial support (e.g. the Vocational Education Centre in Bielawa based on the German partner's experience).Part of the support was connected to aid provided Figure 8.The share of bilateral partnerships in which exchanges of municipal citizens or officials were reported.
Source: Author's own research.
after the 1997 flood.This was the main kind of occasional support offered to Polish communities by Hungarian, Czech and Slovak partners.There were reports of some support extended by Polish municipalities to partners in Eastern Europe, mainly to the municipalities inhabited by a Polish minority in Russia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and the Czech Republic.These were gifts such as textbooks and school equipment, gifts for the poor, financial support for the redecoration of Polish schools or cultural centres.Some Polish municipalities helped Czech communities after the floods in 2002.
The only partner outside Europe, with the exchange of goods and persons, was the USA.Due to great distances and the cost of transportation, exchanges with this country are smaller than within the European network.Future plans of Polish municipalities most frequently involved human exchange (pointed out in 30% of polled partnerships), cultural events (22%), initiation of international cooperation of local businesses (19%), promotion of tourism (10%), sporting events (8%), staff and citizen training (7%) and others (cooperation of public service institutions, solving environmental or social problems, obtaining funds).It is interesting to note the high position of willingness to initiate international business contacts, because this has seldom been reported to date.
Figure 9.The share of bilateral relations with partners from particular countries in the total number of partnerships reporting material effects, and the main directions of goods flow.
Source: Author's own research.2001;Marczuk and Palka, 2002).But considering economic factors, we must remember that business links are usually not much related to the cooperation of local communities (Schep et al., 1995;Hewitt;2000).
In the present survey, private contacts were the most significant in establishing twinning.This indicates that the directions of town-twinning exchange are mostly the effect of the existing socio-economic relations and the actual human mobility.
Although private contacts between local communities are very important, the assistance of various institutions supporting the cooperation financially as well as by information exchange has also a big influence on the flows directions, a factor which has been pointed out by a number of authors (Schep et al., 1995;Budzynowska, 1996;Alger, 1999;Grochowski and Regulska, 2000;Marczuk and Palka, 2002).Some authors point out an important role of national minorities and immigrant communities in establishing official international relationships between local authori-ties.These communities intend to maintain contacts with their main cultural areas or their place of origin.and £oboda, 1999).In Poland, the biggest cities are the leaders of international cooperation, especially Kraków and Gdañsk.A special case is the local government of the Polish capital city Warszawa (Warsaw), which is really not so active in MIC, considering its biggest potential (Furmankiewicz, 2002).
The cooperation and exchange of individual small and medium towns is mostly smaller, but they have greater importance and growing potential due to a great number of such municipalities.
To sum up, the main influence on the directions and character of exchange in twinning relationships of Polish municipalities was that of: • mobility of local communities, chiefly private contacts of local leaders; • possibility of financing the exchange by partners and external institutions; • traditions and the activity of the partner's local government, related to its political conditions.A characteristic feature of cooperation within twinning relationships is the exchange of information on the partners' culture and local economy.The main phi-losophy of exchange could be described as «See how we live, get to know us and accept us.See how we manage and solve our problems and use our experience back at home».Town-twinning might cause permanent migrations, but its philosophy prefers chiefly temporary human mobility of an educational character, whose main goal is the exchange of knowledge and information.

R RE EF FE ER RE EN NC CE ES S
• ALGER CH.F. (1981), Potential of international exchange in building a more participatory world (revised), German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) International Society for Educational, Cultural and Scientific Interchanges (ISECSI), Wingspread Conference October 3-6, 1981 (manuscript).• ALGER CH.F. (1997), «Japanese municipal international exchange and cooperation in the Asia-Pacific: opportunities and challenges», Ritsumeikan International Studies, vol. 9,no. 4,pp. 29- 43.• ALGER CH.F. (1999), «The future of democracy and global governance depends on widespread public knowledge about local links to the world», Cities,vol. 16,no. 3, 2000), «International municipal cooperation: An enabling approach to development for small and intermediate urban centers?», Third World Planning Review, Vol.22, Is. 3, pp.335-360.  • AEWIN L. (1993), Polityczne determi- KEY WORDS: local government, international cooperation, human and goods flows, Poland RÉSUMÉ L LE E J JU UM ME EL LA AG GE E D DE ES S V VI IL LL LE ES S C CO OM MM ME E F FA AC CT TE EU UR R D D' 'I IM MP PU UL LS SI IO ON N À À D DE ES S F FL LU UX X I IN NT TE ER RN NA A--T TI IO ON NA AU UX X D DE E B BI IE EN NS S E ET T D DE E P PE ER RS SO ON NN NE ES S. .L L' 'E EX XE EM MP PL LE E D DE E L LA A P PO OL LO OG GN NE E Le jumelage des villes est une forme de Coopération Municipale Internationale (CMI).Il permet à des communautés locales de partager certaines expériences et innovations dans le domaine des techniques de gestion des villes et des municipalités et encourage la tendance à abolir les barrières politiques.Le jumelage genère des flux de biens et de personnes dans le cadre d'échanges mis sur pied par les gouvernements locaux et organisés avec leur assistance.Durant la dernière décennie, la coopération internationale de gouvernements locaux en Pologne a principalement suscité l'échange d'information, de biens et de personnes avec l'Europe de l'Ouest et les pays scandinaves (64% de l'ensemble des échanges en 2001), en particulier l'Allemagne, la France, la Hollande et le Danemark.
ST TA AC CL LE ES S T TO O C CO OO OP PE ER RA AT TI IO ON N

Figure 4 .
Figure 4.The obstacles to bilateral international cooperation in Polish municipalities' opinion.

Figure 5 .
Figure 5. Non-material (knowledge and information) and material (goods and infrastructural investments) effects of bilateral cooperation of Polish municipalities with foreign partners (percentage of partnerships reporting effects in all answers).Source: Author's own research.

Figure 7 .Figure 6 .
Figure 7. Percentage of bilateral partnerships reporting material effects of cooperation in border and transregional links.Source: Author's own research.

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In 1993, Poland ratified the European Outline Convention on Transfrontier Co-operation between Territorial Communities or Authorities, announced in Madrid on 21 st May, 1980, and in 1994 it ratified the European Charter of Local Self-Government, signed in 1985 by 12 countries participating in the work of the Standing Conference of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe (currently Congress of..

Table 1 .
Origin of European partners of Polish municipalities at the end of 2001.
Source: Author's own calculations based on data from the Association of Polish Cities and other materials.

Table 2 .
Origin of foreign partners of Polish municipalities according to continents at the end of 2001.Figure 2. The percentage of border links in the total number of Polish municipalities' partnerships with partners from neighbouring countries.

Table 3 .
Origin of foreign partners of Polish municipalities according to countries at the end of 2001.: Author's own calculations based on data from the Association of Polish Cities and other materials.
Source152 Town-twinning as a factor generating international flows of goods and people E ES ST TA AB BL LI IS SH HM ME EN NT T O OF F T TW WI IN NN NI IN NG G