Waiting at Giurgiulesti Customs: Borders, Bureaucracy, and Geopolitics in between Ukraine, Moldova, and the EU

Abstract

ABSTRACT Customs and geopolitics condition one another and are produced on a transnational, national, and local scale. The Russian war in Ukraine gives this interdependency a human face in the form of thousands of lorry drivers waiting to be cleared at external EU borders. This article explores the reasons and the inherent power structure behind movement and stasis at the border triangle between Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania. Flanking the European Union, this border is a historically contested and infrastructurally dense nodal point where corruption is rife. Analysing EU policy discourse on border management, and combining semi-structured interviews with customs officials, conversations with lorry drivers, and border and office-space ethnography, this article brings together different narratives of Moldova’s integration into the EU customs space. All these perspectives articulate cross-border bureaucracy through a geopolitical lens. Thus, this article ethnographically debunks the techno-bureaucratic discourse of customs regulation that emphasises efficiency, rationality, and transparency by shedding light on the everyday dimension of customs and geopolitics as a lived practice.