ABSTRACT
Over the fifteen years after the collapse of communism, the uniting of Western and Eastern Europe through the ongoing enlargement of the EU has been the most important single policy instrument available to further a more stable and prosperous continent.2 Eight post-communist states concluded negotiations with the EU in 2002 and joined as full members in May 2004. Several more are poised to do so around the end of the decade. In this chapter we seek to outline in the very broadest strokes the most important structural forces of national interest and influence underlying the dynamics of enlargement itself and its future consequences for EU governance. We argue that European governments, West and East, calculated the expected economic and geopolitical consequences of enlargement for their domestic societies and acted accordingly. While we do not claim that such an analysis is comprehensive, we believe it captures the most significant underlying forces in play in enlargement politics.
