Wave after wave of new members have joined the initial founders, all looking for better trade opportunities, more cohesion, increased cooperation and, ultimately, an increase in quality of life for their citizens.

Of course, disparities existed, and they still do, but one should see them as positively adding to the European diversity, rather than emphasizing differentiation and gap-generating between members. But, drawing on these disparities, some political actors are currently promoting agendas that, willingly or not, diminish solidarity, both among European countries and between the EU and its members, and this can only harm the European project in the long term.

The migrant crisis faced by Poland is such an example of how an EU member country is targeted by outside forces in order to apply significant pressure on the European bloc as a whole. And, for the moment, that pressure seems to be successful. The Polish border is practically under attack by a new type of weapon that is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to be deterred, because the weapon is actually at the same time a humanitarian crisis – full-blown hybrid warfare stretched and pushed far beyond any limits imaginable by Europeans. Unwillingly, Poland has become, during the past months, the testing ground for this new type of conflict, for which the external factors have no problem with using migrants as weapons. And these migrants actually have no fault of their own, except that of trying to avoid and escape their own tragedies at home through desperately seeking for new, decent lives in Europe. Mercilessly tricked into pushing through the Polish border in order to get to the European Union, these people are now stuck between a rock and a hard place. At the same time, desperately wanting to reach the EU promise-land, they are easy prey for disinformation and manipulation experts that try, with some success even, to push the migrants’ nerves to the limit and make them turn violently against the ones that they see as holding them back from reaching their goals: the Polish forces guarding the border of the EU.

We have witnessed signs of solidarity from the Baltic states, who are currently finding themselves maybe too close to the crisis zone, and from NATO, which rightfully recognized and condemned the hybrid tactics used against a member country.

Of course, Poland and the EU have had their share of rougher times lately, but, as in any relationship, internal problems should be left behind until the resolution of the outsider menace. Obviously, Poland’s rule of law issues are a serious matter and they will have to be addressed to ensure that the EU remains a rules- and values-based community. Nonetheless, in the current circumstances, the European Union has the opportunity to prove right now, during this hard crisis period, that it knows how to stay united and act as one in defence of its own. In doing that, the European Union would show that it can tackle different topics using separate approaches, as it should. It is time to realize that the Polish border is not just the border between Poland and Belarus, it is actually part of the border of the European Union and NATO to the East – and this realization should trigger an accurate response to the aid of Poland.