Ukraine as a Bridge to Russia. What Can the EU Learn from the Past Polish Political Strategies for Eastern Neighbourhood?

Abstract

The Russian intervention in Donbas and annexation of Crimea have triggered a fundamental reassessment of the EU policy towards Easter neighbourhood and Russia. The main aim of this paper is to contribute to this discussion about the EU’ strategy towards Russia by presenting political concept named “The Giedroyc doctrine”, created by Polish intellectuals on exile, when Poland was under Soviet domination. However created a few decades ago some elements of this doctrine are still surprisingly relevant today and may feed into contemporary European debate.

In particular we argue that strengthening the prosperity, stability and security in Eastern Europe is possible only when Russia transformed itself into a prosperous, democratic state. Autocratic, neo-imperial Russia is going to undermine any major pro-Western political changes in the region. Therefore, the successful transformation of Russia into stable, prosperous and democratic state should be the long term vision of European politicians aiming at ensuring security of Europe. All political activities in the eastern neighbourhood should be subordinated to this. It means, that support for changes in Ukraine and strengthening cooperation with this country should not be an end in itself. Westernization of Ukraine should be perceived only as a leaven for the political transformation of the whole region.