Evaluating 20 Years of Poland's Membership in the European Union - Results of an Expert Survey
Evaluating 20 Years of Poland's Membership in the European Union - Results of an Expert Survey

Summary/Abstract: May 2024 marked the twentieth anniversary of Poland's membership in the European Union. Two decades provide a unique opportunity to take stock and thoroughly analyse the successes, failures, and challenges of this period in the context of Poland. In the summer of 2024, the author invited Polish nationals working in EU institutions and agencies, as well as in Brussels-based think tanks, to express their opinions about Poland's membership in the EU in an online expert survey. The survey was conducted in technical collaboration with Dr Marta Pachocka from the Department of Political Studies at the SGH Warsaw School of Economics, while the visualisations were prepared by Ksenia Naranovich, a PhD student at the same institution. The main group of respondents comprised members of two Polish networks actively engaged in the EU forum - the Network PL Association and the Polish European Professionals Network, who the authors consider experts on European affairs, and whose knowledge and access to information in this field exceed that of ordinary citizens. They represent the elite in the sense of neo-functional theory, which provides the theoretical framework for the authors' considerations. In this approach, the drivers of integration are elites and interest groups that operate at the supranational level, who seek solutions to their problems and opportunities to articulate their needs before supranational institutions. This implies that elites and interest groups shift their loyalties and interests to supranational structures, thereby weakening the role of national governments. The elites include members of political parties, national officials, and European bureaucracy employees, all of whom are motivated by their own interests. This article presents the results of an online survey (using the CAWI technique) conducted among Polish European experts, one which was particularly important in the context of preparations for the Polish Presidency in 2025.

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