Return to the West: NATO 1999, EU 2004
Poland joins NATO and then the European Union, anchoring itself in the West and beginning two decades of rapid growth and large-scale emigration.
- A Concise History of Poland (3rd edition) — Jerzy Lukowski and Hubert Zawadzki, Cambridge University Press (2019)
- Poland — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Poland in the Modern World: Beyond Martyrdom — Brian Porter-Szűcs, Wiley-Blackwell (2014)
Poland joined NATO on 12 March 1999, alongside Hungary and the Czech Republic, and the European Union on 1 May 2004, after 77% voted yes in a 2003 referendum. Britain, Ireland and Sweden opened their labour markets immediately, and hundreds of thousands of Poles moved west; by the 2010s Poles were among the largest foreign-born groups in the UK. EU funds and investment powered growth: Poland was the only EU economy to avoid recession in 2009, and its income per head has risen dramatically since 1989.
- A Concise History of Poland (3rd edition) — Jerzy Lukowski and Hubert Zawadzki, Cambridge University Press (2019)
- Poland — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
Belonging to the West has not ended argument about it. From 2015 to 2023 the Law and Justice government clashed with the EU over judicial independence and the rule of law; its supporters saw a defence of national sovereignty and traditional values, its opponents a slide towards authoritarianism.
- Poland — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Poland in the Modern World: Beyond Martyrdom — Brian Porter-Szűcs, Wiley-Blackwell (2014)
Why it matters today
NATO membership is the guarantee Poles feel they never had in 1939, and support for the EU has stayed high even as Poles argue fiercely about Brussels. EU accession also sent well over a million Poles to work in Britain, Ireland and Germany, and transformed Polish towns with roads, stadiums and renovated squares.