Transcripts from interviews carried out in Brussels and Warsaw between 2007 and 2010, to investigate the impact of a new Member State on the making of policy towards the EU’s eastern neighbours, using Poland as a case study. The project began with an investigation of Poland’s policy preferences in the field of the EU’s policy towards its eastern neighbours, asking specifically: (1) What are Poland’s policy preferences in the field of the EU’s relations with its eastern neighbours, and how many of these objectives has it achieved? (2) How are these preferences formed? (3) How successful has the Polish government been in achieving its policy objectives and why? The research found that Poland's positive influence on the making of the EU's policy towards its eastern neighbours was low in the first period of membership (2004–07), however, between 2007 and 2009, the Polish government significantly increased its level of influence, most demonstrably through the launch of the Eastern Partnership initiative together with Sweden. This improvement was the direct result of a considerable amount of policy learning and adaptation to the rules of the Brussels game on the part of Polish officials and politicians. Nonetheless, the project also found that considerable weaknesses in administrative capacity and policy coordination remain. Whether the European Union will 'widen' or 'deepen' over the next 10 to 15 years is a question of vital significance to scholars and practitioners working on European integration. This project focuses on two under-researched issues that stand out as particularly important to determining the future direction of the EU. First, will the EU be 'wider', specifically what kind of relationship will the EU have with its eastern neighbours: Russia, Ukraine and Belarus - what could be called 'EU Eastern Policy'. Second, will the EU be 'deeper', that is how will the relationship between the EU and its Member States evolve in the medium to long term. The proposed research aims to shed light on both of these crucial areas by looking at the impact of a new Member State on the making of policy towards the EU's eastern neighbours. It will explore the proposition that the enlargement of the EU has had a profound effect on the EU's relations with its new neighbours. The case of Poland has been chosen since of all the new Member States, it has the greatest ambitions in shaping policy towards the Union's eastern neighbours.
Interviews with officials from Polish ministries, officials from organizations presenting business interests, private sector analysts, journalists, think tank analysts, officials from European institutions, notably from the Council and Commission, Polish ministries, Members of the Polish European Parliament, Polish deputies, academics and other commentators. In total, 29 interviews were carried out in Warsaw and and 15 in Brussels. In detail, semi-structured interviews were carried out as follows. Data that provided an answer to the question of how policy preferences are formed, from semi-structured interviews with (i) officials from business organisations (particularly the Chamber of Commerce); and, (ii) foreign policy specialists in order to gauge their impact on the formation of policy preferences. Data that provided a qualitative ‘peer review’ on the Polish government’s performance in the EU, compiled from a series of semi-structured interviews with relevant actors in Warsaw and Brussels. The Warsaw interviews included officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Sejm, and the presidential secretariat. In Brussels, interviews were conducted with officials from the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament together with officials from key permanent representations. A series of in-depth interviews with experts (analysts from think tanks and university-based political scientists) in Poland – as well as the European policy analyst community in Brussels.
