ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the enlargement processes in the broader social, economic and political shifts of the twentieth century. It argues that though the Southern and Central and Eastern European enlargements were seen as momentous achievements for European democracy. The chapter shapes the EC/EU's view of itself as a defender of liberal, market and democratic values and rights, it was the prospect of economic growth and level-headed geostrategic considerations that induced the applicants to embrace such values. It offers a more interest-based analysis of why enlargement takes place. To the Socialist and moderate Southern European leaders, full membership in the EC almost immediately became the most relevant foreign policy goal; moreover, the EC had become, in the minds of most Greeks, Spanish and Portuguese, a model for a sound balance between the welfare state, consumer society, social progress and economic modernisation.
