ABSTRACT
European Union (EU)-funded research has confirmed the EU’s considerable impact on the nature of cross-border relations in Eastern and Central Europe. With the historic enlargements of the EU in 2004 and 2007, prospects of a new and more decisive geopolitical role for the EU have been raised. The EU is a major geopolitical project of ‘reterritorialization’. It has shifted many central functions of political sovereignty away from nation-states, a process culminating in a state-like political community with numerous policy-making institutions. The construction of the EU is in large part an attempt to create a coherent political, social and economic space within a clearly defined multinational community. According to the Ukrainian Mission to the EU: ‘The European Commission is unfamiliar with the real situation in Ukraine and has used all resources in talks to justify proposals that are absolutely unacceptable to Ukraine, proposals for the agreement on readmission.’
