The article seeks to assess the degree to which Poland exercises power and influence in the Eastern policy of the European Union (EU) from the early 21st century until now, focusing on the attributes of Poland’s latest contribution to the EU policies – the Eastern Partnership (EaP). The article examines also challenges and discussions on Polish strategy towards Eastern Europe. The authors prove that the main points of Poland’s Eastern policy are that the improper attention to it will result in loss of status positions in the international arena; Poland should not be limited by the role of the architect artist in Franco-German project in Europe; European perspective is the only incentive that can encourage the reforms in Eastern Europe; the failure to provide such a perspective would lead to social and economic instability in the region and the drift towards the participation in reintegration projects in post-Soviet space with Moscow; the Eastern Partnership should be considered as a step towards the joining the EU; Europe will take Poland into consideration only as a regional leader; Russian neo-imperialism is a challenge for Poland’s security and needs a strict reaction.

The article deals with the issue of the development of geopolitical imagination of Polish political elites following 1989. The source database of the text are the most important official documents regarding the foreign policy of the Third Polish Republic: the policy statements of subsequent prime ministers and the so-called small policy statements of the ministers of foreign affairs. Discourse analysis and system analysis were used to analyse them, treating them as a social construct. Geopolitical imagination placed Poland in Europe, in the dangerous zone between Germany and Russia and on the border of the two civilizations. The escape from this “fatalism of geography” was the main goal of the elites of the Third Polish Republic. Hence the orientation towards the West, to ensure the exit from peripherality, security and development. To justify such a remodelling of their representations, the elites put forward an idealized image of the West. It facilitated the acceptance of the geopolitical choice made by the society and the associated severe limitation of Poland’s geopolitical and economic autonomy. The vehicles on the way to the West were bandwagoning towards the USA and Germany, which justified clientelism towards them. In various combinations, the representations about Poland’s key role in the post-communist region re-emerged following 1989 to strengthen its position in relation to the West and the East. As for the eastern direction, Poland’s goal was to move the imaginary borders of the West towards our eastern neighbours, mainly Belarus and Ukraine. This must have led to the negative reaction from Russia, which considered this area its sphere of influence. Russia was imagined by us to be an alien and enemy, and the change of this state of affairs would be a consequence of the Westernisation of Russia so desired by the Polish elites. It seems that in the years 1989–2015, one could speak of a certain interpretative community, which the LaJ (Law and Justice/Prawo i Sprawiedliwość) governments broke down following 2015. The LaJ foreign policy has become a hostage of those undermining the liberal democracy of internal political system changes. Their criticism in the EU states isolates and pushes towards servility to Washington. In turn, the Three Seas Initiative is too divided and weak to leverage Poland’s position. It seems that re-approaching the EU’s core may give us some freedom and better protection in external policy.

The article analyzes selected activities of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland in connection with the main directions of Polish foreign policy. For the purpose of consideration of the thesis, it was assumed that the Foreign Affairs Committee has a complementary/supplementary role in the control of the directions of Polish foreign policy, and in Poland there was a balance between executive and legislative power in this area. The research problem was to determine the scale of the Committee’s interest in world events through a specific response and to define the specific geographic area that would result from this activity. The method of quantitative analysis was used, PS Imago Pro 7.0 program was used for the research. The result of the research allowed to draw conclusions that the Committee’s interest of opinion-forming and intervention through the publication of statements, as well as formulating recommendations in the vast majority is manifested in relation to the most important issues in the immediate environment of Poland: Belarus, the situation of Poles in Lithuania, the events in the Caucasus, which is consistent with the basic directions of Polish foreign policy.