Northern Dimension to include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, the importance of the Northern Dimension has increased considerably: eight EU Member States (Denmark, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Sweden) surround the Baltic Sea, and the EU’s shared border with Russia has lengthened. Recent years have seen far-reaching changes in the geopolitical map of northern Europe. The Baltic States regained their independence in 1991. Finland and Sweden joined the EU in 1995, and Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland in 2004. These events greatly increased the Northern and Baltic “presence” of the EU, and substantially lengthened the common border shared by the
Poland–Ukraine border of Poland-Russia, Poland-Lithuania, Poland-Belarus and Poland-Ukraine borders. Poland and Ukraine have confirmed the border on 18 May 1992. It is the longest of Polish eastern borders. The border became much more open compared to the Soviet times, when despite being part of the Eastern Bloc, crossing was very difficult. As the border was opened to mass traffic, the number of people crossing the Polish-Ukrainian border begun raising steadily since 1990, stabilizing around 2000s. Approximately 3 million Ukrainians crossed the border in the 1990s, annually. One of the peak numbers was recorded in 2001, with about 12 million people crossing the