European Union

The European Union is a political community whose significance in the novel emerges through Agata Kowalski’s reflection on belonging, family history, and the possibility of Britain’s departure. Rather than treating Europe as distant political background, the conversation with Jo Stuart connects the prospect of leaving the Union to Agata’s own citizenship and her refusal to choose between British and European identities.

Agata’s British and European Identity

Agata tells Jo that she was born in Britain, is a British citizen, and holds a British passport. Although both her parents are Polish and she would automatically qualify for Polish citizenship, she has never previously considered claiming it. Her distinction between her own birthplace and her parents’ origins makes clear that Polish heritage has not, until this conversation, required her to adopt Polish nationality.

She explains that she has always regarded herself as both British and European. The possibility that Britain might leave the European Union changes the practical and emotional terms of that identity: she does not want to be forced to choose between the two. If Britain leaves, she says, she will take up Polish citizenship. The decision is presented conditionally, as a response to a political change rather than as a rejection of her British identity.

Family History and Polish Roots

Agata links her parents’ insistence that she remember her roots to a family history shaped by war, migration, and changing political circumstances. She recounts that her grandfather served with the Polish forces in exile in Britain during the Second World War and was among Polish airmen who served in the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain and afterward. After the war, he received British citizenship and returned to Poland to help rebuild the country.

A decade later, disillusioned and convinced that Soviet control would not loosen, her grandfather returned to Britain with Agata’s father and two aunts. This history helps explain why Agata’s Polish connections are not simply inherited labels: they are part of a family story in which nationality, residence, and political allegiance have repeatedly been shaped by events beyond the family’s control. Her parents later took the family to Poznań as Poland began to re-establish itself as a nation, further giving her connection to Poland a lived dimension.

Citizenship as a Personal Consequence of Political Change

Agata turns the abstract question of Britain’s European future into a practical contrast between herself and Jo. If she acquires Polish citizenship, she jokes, she will be able to pass through immigration and customs in both directions when they travel in Europe, while Jo will have to queue with other people from outside the European Union. She promises to wait for Jo at baggage collection. The lightness of the exchange does not erase its underlying point: political membership can determine the ordinary experience of crossing borders, and a change in national status can make a shared journey unequal.

For Jo, the conversation also discloses how much she does not know about Agata. Jo admits that she had assumed too much from Agata’s apparent affinity with Poland. Agata’s explanation separates family roots, birthplace, citizenship, and self-understanding rather than allowing any one of them to stand for the whole. The European Union consequently serves as the immediate setting for a more intimate conversation about identity: the possibility of departure prompts Agata to articulate a European belonging she has previously understood as compatible with being British.