On 1 May 2004 the European Union (EU) expanded from 15 to 25 member states. Celebrating the historic Eastern enlargement of the Union, the-then President of the European Commission Romano Prodi remarked that ‘the divisions of the Cold War are gone’ and Le Monde declared ‘Europe – a new continent’ (European Commission, 2004). Nevertheless, perceptions of an East-West divide remain. 20 years after accession, Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) are still referred to as ‘new’ member states and their agency has been repeatedly erased or disregarded in academic and policy debates. With enlargement firmly back on the Union’s agenda, the questions about the future of European integration and the functioning of the Union have taken centre stage again. Understanding CEE member states’ policy preferences and influence on EU politics is of paramount importance. With the aim to challenges outdated approaches to analysing the role and impact of CEE, the paper advances a novel perspective to study why and how CEE matters for the development of EU enlargement policy and the future of European integration.

Abstract

This paper examines the prospects of the EU enlargement in the new geopolitical context, faced with major geo-economics shifts, triggered by the war in Ukraine. It examines the challenges of the EU enlargement, from a historical perspective and revisits the critical junctures of the post-1989 period. The lessons drawn from the early 1990s concerning the EU enlargement process, the lack of cooperation in EU foreign policy and defence, and the historical conceptualization of the process of Europeanization, can give us important views on the role which the EU aims to play in the future. Thus, however, would require a re-invention of the ideological EU project shifting away from the neoliberal doctrine to a broader social type of EU able to address the collective interest of its citizens.

This paper therefore reflects on the period of 1989 as a critical moment when Eastern and Central Europe both closed the legacies with the past and opened up to new European perspectives. The socialist planning and the international solidarity with the developing world were transformed into a new doctrine by pushing a new type of individualism within the context of the globalized liberal market economy. At the same time, the EU expanded its powers following the 1991 Maastricht Treaty and passed authorities to the non-majoritarian institutions, led by non-elected experts. This has become a persistent challenge to the EU democratic legitimacy and the EU demoicracy-in-the-making. The political stability driven by re-organized and re-structured political parties, aligned with strong national parliaments which should provide on democratic legitimation has remained amidts the executive force of powers. By the early 1990s, these ideological transformations had set the political-economic context and exposed the EU inter-institutional tension in identifying where the final authority lies. In this context, this paper discuss the challenges and prospects to the EU enlargement.

This paper offers a new perspective on the EU enlargement, by re-visiting the historical context of the 1990s, aiming to understand the functioning of the EU in general. It argues that the historical lessons of the past are important avenues for understanding the challenges to the ‘geopolitical’ Europe, and the EU's strategy towards collective decision-making. By re-visiting the context where different tensions of soveregnity are taking place on the nation-state level from 1989 onwards, this paper contributes to the general debate on the EU's democratic legitimacy as well and suggests further avenues for analysing the future of the EU.

The European Union is again dealing with the issue of enlargement. Russia’s attempted full-scale invasion of Ukraine injected new energy into the EU’s enlargement process that had witnessed an almost standstill since Croatia’s accession in 2013. The paper suggests that existing integration theories fail to grasp the enlargement dynamic while being EU-centric. Even though European integration theories initially were anchored in theories of international relations they later developed increasingly away from the ‘problematic of the international’.

The paper elaborates on an approach that utilises the concept of ‘interaction’ at four levels. At the most general level, the model explores how the culture of interaction present in the international system affects the enlargement process. On the next level, it explores how the process is linked to the interaction pattern between the EU and its immediate surroundings. The third level explores interactions between EU member states and candidate countries. The fourth level is devoted to the EU's internal interaction culture.

The paper revisits the 2004/2007 big Eastern enlargement of the EU to demonstrate the framework and suggests the cruciality of the culture of liberal world order and rule-based interaction for the process. It then examines the present situation and outlines a research agenda based on the framework for the ongoing enlargement process.