ABSTRACT
The policy of the European Union (EU) towards the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) displays the complex relationship between these four themes of risk, reform, resistance and revival. The 1989 revolutions presented for the EU and its member states not only new opportunities, but also the risk of political instability if the transformation processes should fail. The academic literature of the time broadly agreed that the best way to avert this potential risk was to integrate the CEECs with the EU and ultimately, to allow for eastern enlargement. In turn, eastern enlargement required the EU to undertake farreaching internal reforms (see, e.g., Mayhew 1998; Grabbe and Hughes 1998; Avery and Cameron 1998).
