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–Russia border of the People's Republic of Poland and the Soviet Union, including the Border Agreement between Poland and the USSR of 16 August 1945. While the actual border line remained unchanged following the fall of the Soviet Union, the breakdown of the Soviet Union into a number of post-Soviet states transformed the Poland-Soviet Union border into a Poland-Russia, Poland-Lithuania, Poland-Belarus and Poland-Ukraine border. The Poland–Russia borders were confirmed in a Polish-Russian treaty of 1992 (ratified in 1993). The Poland–Russia border is that between Poland and the Kaliningrad oblast of Russia, which is an exclave, unconnected to the rest of Russia. The