ABSTRACT
"A Journey into the Unknown" was a headline of the Financial Times of November 9, 1998, for an article about the European Union (EU) enlargement on the eve of the opening of concrete negotiations of accession with what was then the Luxembourg Group. The EU has made political promises to the Balkan States. Croatia hopes that the EU handles its accession application individually and that it will not let it flow together with the Western Balkans group, which will have to make its way to Brussels together. Since 2002, the EU has time and again made an effort to deal with—next to the Western Balkans and Turkey—its future relationship to its new neighbors since the enlargement: Belarus, Ukraine, and also Moldova. The Russian Federation and the EU will take a separate path of rapprochement. Austria will also have to define its interests in view of the coming enlargement rounds.
