By Ray Furlong BBC, Gubin

Polish workers - here harvesting vegetables - fill a skills gap

But on the afternoon I was there, it did not translate into a party atmosphere. The thoroughly bored waiting staff almost outnumbered the customers, and they were not spending much.

Gubin has a 35% unemployment rate, and few expect things to get any better when Poland joins the EU on 1 May.

"I don't want to stay in Poland, because I couldn't find a job here. I want to find a better life and better money," lamented one customer, Marta Matuszewska, who has just got back from three years in Britain working as a nanny.

"If you get a job here, the money's not enough to have a family and a normal life. That's why a lot of Polish people, especially the young and smart ones, are going to other countries."

Hardly unpacked, Marta is now looking to go back to Britain - one of the few EU states to allow people from the new member countries to seek work.

Germany's policy is fundamentally flawed Mayor Klaus Dieter Huebner

Germany, which lies just a two-minute walk from U Lecha, is not offering the same opportunities. The authorities have imposed a blanket ban, wary of fears that the country would be flooded by cheap Polish labour.

And yet now Guben, the German sister town to Gubin, has come forward to challenge this orthodoxy.

"Germany's policy is fundamentally flawed," says its Mayor, Klaus Dieter Huebner. "Investors are always asking if it's possible to have a mixed workforce, of Germans and Poles."

Allowing a certain portion of the workforce to come from Poland would attract investors to the region who might otherwise stay away, he believes.

Skills needed

Mr Huebner also says there is an issue surrounding qualified labour.

"Here in the border regions, we lack skilled workers. Many of these people have left for western Germany. Those gaps could be filled by Polish workers," he says.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government faces challenge

The plan has brought this small town to national prominence, and Mr Huebner plans a conference with other eastern German mayors to call for an exception allowing them to give Polish citizens limited access to the local labour market.

But the plan has gone down less well locally. Guben is more prosperous than Gubin, but only just. On the German side of the border, one in four is jobless.

The prospect of Polish workers crossing the river every day was scoffed at in the only pub showing signs of life on the main Guben street.

"Letting in the Poles will only put more Germans out of work," said one man, who said he commuted to western Germany for work. Others nodded in agreement over their beer.

But there was some pragmatic understanding. "The Poles work here illegally anyway," said another drinker. "At least this way they'll pay tax and social security."

Bilingual students

There was also sympathy for the idea at Guben's most prominent existing example of cross-border co-operation: the Europa school.

Here, 10% of the students are Polish, the language of instruction is German, and the idea is that they go on to study at German universities.

"The opening of the labour market is something that can't be avoided anyway," says school director Ulrich Mueler.

"Once Poland becomes a member of the European Union, this is something that materialises itself whether we want it or not. The only thing we can do is try to cope with it."