Since the enlargements of 2004 and 2007, European integration has brought about major changes for the citizens of Central and Eastern Europe, such as a process of rebordering and new obstacles to travel to EU countries. This is the starting point of a research on border identities of the Romanian populations located on the "wrong" side of the EU border in Ukraine, Serbia and Moldova. Based on an analysis of the discourse of “ordinary citizens” collected during interviews and focus-groups conducted in the three countries in 2011 and 2014, the paper looks at the way the border impacts on their construction of identity. The paper shows how, at a first glance, these population’s commitment to Romanian identity can be described as an instrumental and strategic attachment. The paper shows however that such finding needs to be nuanced as other determinants of identity have to be taken into account.
