Whose border, which crisis? Illiberalism and the (re)nationalization of Poland’s eastern frontier, 2015-2022

Follis, Karolina (2025) Whose border, which crisis? Illiberalism and the (re)nationalization of Poland’s eastern frontier, 2015-2022. In: Handbook of European Borderlands :. Routledge International Handbooks . Routledge, London, pp. 357-371. ISBN 9781032295299

Abstract

This chapter explores the political contestations around Poland’s eastern borders with Belarus and Ukraine in the years 2021-22, situating them within the context of the post-1989 history of the transformation of Poland’s eastern border into the eastern external boundary of the European Union. In 2004, Poland’s eastern border became part of the larger perimeter of the European Union’s “area of freedom, security and justice” and the Polish Border Guard was enlisted in the task of protecting not just Poland’s territory, but also this larger area, with significant consequences for the borderland and beyond. In the chapter, I revisit some of the original tensions accompanying EU accession and the Europeanization of Poland’s eastern borders, before showing how the authorities came to interpret the task of “protecting Europe” following the illiberal turn in Polish politics in 2015, and how their actions developed in 2021-22, in the context of rising geopolitical tensions in the region and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Arguing that in the early 21st century most border politics are simultaneously local and global, domestic and European, the chapter asks what can we learn from the events on Poland’s borders about EU bordering practices within the context of Europe’s so-called “geopolitical turn”.