ABSTRACT
The European nation-states at stake, have simply had more than enough time to cultivate their apriori identities/vested interests and consequently develop their governments’ uncertainty avoidance. Whereas Poland is vital to the security of Europe as a whole and Germany in particular, Finland and the Baltic states are not seen in the West as forming an area of vital Western strategic interest. Finland having been once a part of Tsarist Russia Finnish membership is also a sensitive issue, although hardly of Baltic dimensions. NATO enlargement to the Baltic countries in the wake of Polish membership would actually encircle a piece of Russian territory, the heavily armed Kaliningrad enclave. The membership pole has made the criteria for membership explicit; the students being the would-be members are more than willing to learn from their teachers-the European Union (EU) Commission and existing EU member-countries-how to interpret and fulfill these criteria.
