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Crossing the Border. Transborder Practices of Small-scale Economic Actors at the EU’s New External Border between Romania and Ukraine.. The significant changes that have occurred in European border regimes during the last years have caused considerable consequences for people dealing with “the” border in their daily routines. On the one hand the EU’s external border has to perform a security function, but on the other hand it has to continue serving as an “efficient economic bridge” – the intended double function can be summarised by the expression “smart border”. Thus, the border has a variety of impacts, differing in accordance with the social context. The research project “Geographies along the EU project’s eastern edges” reported here aims at analysing such transborder practices of small-scale traders and small entrepreneurs and how they deal with the border as a geopolitical ordering of the social world in a comparative manner. Based on the project findings it can be argued that in the framework of these everyday practices the external European border which is regulated as a uniform and common one is not always realised in the intended homogeneous way but heterogeneous due to “local”, “individual” etc. influences and circumstances.

Keywords: European Union, EU’s external border, Schengen treaty, border, border regime, transborder practices, small-scale trade, small entrepreneurship.