Conference Agenda

The conventional perspective, shaped by Cold War logic and ethnocentric biases, suggests that Eastern enlargement simply molded all Central and Eastern European countries to conform to a Western model. This draft paper challenges this view by focusing on the Polish case and exploring the reciprocal influences and challenges posed by the enlargement process.

From the European perspective, the challenge was to reposition itself within a rapidly evolving international landscape, incorporating new countries with diverse cultures and recent histories while striving to enhance its legal frameworks. On the Polish side, it is crucial to recognize that the country aimed to define its identity in a way that neither completely aligned with its communist past nor merely adopted Western values. Poland's approach to integration was characterized by a desire to establish its own identity, grounded in its historical, cultural, and political experiences. Initially economically driven in the 1970s, Poland's engagement with the European Community took a political and ethical turn in the 1980s, influenced by Solidarity. Poland sought not only economic benefits but also aimed to shape Europe according to its own perspectives, playing an active role in European integration, with nationalism, despite its limitations, serving as a driving force. This paper utilizes documents from the Historical Archives of the European Union, the Archives of European Integration, and the Archiwum Akt Nowych to retrace Poland's path toward European integration.

As a state vying for European Union (EU) membership, Serbia’s decision not to join the EU sanctions on Russia because of its behavior towards Ukraine can be seen as puzzling. Drawing from the theoretical framework developed by Phil Orchard and Antje Wiener (2024), this paper examines how Serbia has contested the EU sanctions and exposes the motivations behind these actions. Through a discourse analysis of the two main Serb tabloids (Srpski Telgraf and Informer) known for their political closeness to the ruling elites and in particular to President Vucic, this paper identifies Serbia’s main contestation strategies. In the first period starting from the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014 until the full-scale aggression of Russia on Ukraine of 22 February 2022, Serbia engaged in “reactive” contestation, involving the refusal to accept the “us versus them” mentality underpinning any sanction regime. The adoption of sanctions would have gone against the very basis of Serbian foreign policy, which involves the pursuit of closer ties with both the EU and Russia. De facto, this kind of contestation has led Belgrade to side with Moscow. In the second period starting on 22 February 2022, Serbia not only maintained its reactive approach but also it made an effort to contest the EU sanctions regime through a “proactive” as well as an “interpretative” posture. With its proactive stance, Belgrade denounced the negative impact of sanctions on the target state and its population as well as on bystanders in neighboring states or in states closely integrated into global supply chains affected by secondary sanctions. In addition, Serbia engaged in forms of interpretative contestation emerging from its liminal position in the international system by contesting the asymmetry of a policy process making Belgrade the passive recipient of decisions taken in Brussels. Overall, this paper shows how Serbia has adopted multiple types of contestation simultaneously in order to preserve its balancing act in foreign policy: as a state with deep political, cultural and religious ties with Russia, Belgrade would like to advance towards EU accession without antagonizing or undermining its relationship with Moscow, which is also a key ally in its campaign against the recognition of Kosovo independence. Through the analysis of Serbia’s contestation, this paper contributes to the literature on EU sanctions and on the analysis of the foreign policy of states located in the EU periphery.

Democracy is one of the founding values of the European Union (EU) and a guiding principle in its external relations. In the course of the Eastern enlargement, the Union emerged as one of the major democracy promoters. However, assaults on democratic institutions in Europe, most prominent in the cases of Hungary, Poland and Serbia, have undermined the assumption about the transformative power of the Union and sparked a discussion whether and how the Union can safeguard and promote democracy. Despite the growing body of literature, research on the impact of the Union lacks a strong comparative dimension and remains largely confined to the study of the effectiveness of the EU sanctions. Thirty years after the establishment of the Copenhagen criteria, the paper explores in a comparative perspective the debates about the impact of the Union on democracy before and after accession. Firstly, it traces the scope and evolution of EU democracy promotion and safeguarding across EU enlargement policy and EU internal policies. Secondly, it explores why ‘how the Union matters for democracy in enlargement countries’ remains contested by juxtaposing the literature on the Eastern enlargement with the research on the Western Balkans. Thirdly, the paper discusses blind spots and biases in the study of democratic backsliding in the EU. Finally, the paper concludes by reflecting on how the Union has influenced democracy in Central and Eastern Europe and on why democracy promotion and safeguarding have become integral to European integration.

The aim of this presentation lies in shedding light on the motivations, strategies and discourses of the European Commission in advancing the implementation of the Eastward Enlargement of the EC/EU (a "reunification of Europe") in the nineties as a result of the transforming impulse of the end of the Cold War, seen both as a fundamental historical turning point and as a geopolitical game changer.
The main sources selected to elucidate the European Commission’s evolving positions and actions on these issues following the semantic and structural changes of 1989 come from: the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) in Florence and the Archives of the DG Enlargement of the European Commission in Brussels. These sources also include a large set of Oral History interviews conducted with key decision-makers at the European institutions (former Presidents of the European Parliament, former DG Enlargement Directors, etc.) on the topic of the risks, opportunities and conclusions concerning the EC/EU's Eastward Enlargement process in the aftermath of 1989.
In short, this presentation will address how critical historical analysis and qualitative methods offer us a compass to chart intangible variables, such as the instilment of time perceptions in political communication strategies. These approaches can, indeed, enhance our understanding of myths and perceptions as a compelling power to build our own future(s) in conversation.