A Minority at the Border: EU Enlargement and the Ukrainian Minority in Poland

摘要

This paper examines the effects of EU enlargement on the position of the Ukrainian minority in Poland. The enlargement has set two conflicting developments into motion that both may have a serious influence on national minorities in countries at the peripheral borders of the enlarged EU. On the one hand, there is a development towards increased protection of the external borders (see, the incorporation of the Schengen system into the EU). At the same time, however, a new move has become perceptible within the EU towards increased political, security, economic and cultural cooperation with the new neighbouring countries in the east (made concrete, e.g., in the European Neighbourhood Policy). This paper explores what these two opposite trends mean for the Ukrainian minority in Poland. More in particular, have Ukrainian minority actors in Poland actively seized the EU enlargement as a new political opportunity for making their claims heard in domestic politics, stimulating processes of reconciliation, and preventing further ethnic polarisation? Or have they perceived the enlargement of the EU as an obstacle hindering the process of reconciliation between ethnic groups and as a factor further complicating historical disagreements between Poles and Ukrainians?