ABSTRACT
The authors analyse the shifting of Central European concepts towards the East and South-East of Europe which is not accompanied by more geopolitical stability for the countries between the EU and Russia. A growing geopolitical competition for spheres of influence is seen responsible for an “in limbo status” of the Ukraine, Belarus, Moldavia and increasingly also the six Western Balkans countries. Especially in the Western Balkans, ethnic and religious fault lines as well as the economic and political influence of Turkey, Russia and China create in the region doubts about EU-accession, a perspective which had been promised by the EU already back in 2003. Overall, the trajectory towards the European Union is (still) a feature in all countries in the borderlands between the geopolitical competitors.
