New EU members and the CFSP: Europeanization of the Polish foreign policy i

The issue of the foreign policies of the new EU members seems to be especially important today, as the enlarged EU needs to build a coherent foreign policy to be able to pursue its role as a global actor. Different history, experiences and political cultures of the new member states still seem to be quite unknown for the old EU members. This study focuses on the Polish foreign policy and its change, motivated by the EU adaptation pressures and investigates the impact of Poland on the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) of the European Union with particular reference to Poland’s ability to ‘upload’ its foreign policy interests in Eastern Europe to gain acceptance and support from its EU partners. To highlight the scope and limitations of Poland’s ability to upload its foreign policy preferences to the EU level, the focus of this study will be on the EU’s relations with Ukraine, after the Orange Revolution and Belarus, after the Presidential elections in 2006. The theoretical framework is based on the Europeanization approach, showing first the level of adaptation of the policy on the national level, and then the process and mechanisms of bringing national interest to the EU.