Shift Mag - Europe talks to Brussels

EU-27: neither hell nor heaven

Does Ode to Joy still echo from Tallinn to Sofia? But maybe the right question should be: has it ever done so since the enlargement of the European Union (EU) to Eastern Europe?

Except among the elites, enthusiasm for the 2004 and 2007 enlargements were a lukewarm enthusiasm. East Europeans like West Europeans were mutually fearful of this opening of the borders. So in comparison public opinion in Central and Eastern Europe is today globally more pro-European. A good example is the Polish rural community which was strongly opposed to EU adhesion and is in complete support now.

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Written by Jean-Michel De Waele   

Also in this issue

• The multiple faces of Euroscepticism
• Strangers in the night of Brussels - Who are the European Commissioners exactly?
• "Any new political project needs constructive criticism"
• The other side of the coin
• 1989-2009: twenty years after in Poland
• Edito

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• Post Script February 2009
• Shifting with... Alain Hubert
• Hard times for immigration in the EU
• Moving alone: end of the line or pit stop?
• Visions of Europa