ABSTRACT
According to a recent journalistic truism, the Iron Curtain that was dismantled in 1989 as a political and ideological frontier has since re-emerged as an economic and social border. Schengenland protects itself from its Eastern neighbours with the help of import quotas and visa obligation, police buildup along the border, and a blend of diplomatic arrogance and precaution. The truism is based on the identification of the new 'police frontier' with a social border, or, more precisely, with a welfare cascade that ranges from the former Iron Curtain to Siberia. In the light of this assumption, the Iron Curtain remained a border beyond which social exclusion, human deprivation, poverty and criminality prevail. Probably, East-Central Europe (ECE) can still be salvaged, but the farther you move to the east, the more severe social crisis you find. Because this contradicts established European values, and - perhaps more importantly - because of the need to protect Western markets after Osterweiterung, one of the elementary requirements of entrance to the European Union for the ex-communist countries is a quick and steady increase in wages and social performance levels.
