Ten new members, eight of them post-communist states, joined the EU on 1 May 2004. This chapter takes up three issues that will shape the future of an enlarged EU. First, the EU’s active leverage has had a substantial impact on the political and economic institutions of the new members: has it promoted robust democratic institutions and a vigorous economy, as I have argued, or did it in fact undermine them? Second, the endgame of the negotiations forced unfavourable terms of accession onto the new members: will these unfavourable terms translate into a permanent second-class status? Or will the new members, bargaining hard to improve their position and importing diversity, bring European integration to a standstill? I argue that both concerns are overblown. Third, why did the EU decide to enlarge to these eight post-communist states, and how much further it is likely to go? The EU’s active leverage has been working in parts of the Western Balkans and in Turkey, and it could work elsewhere. The costs of foreclosing future membership for countries such as Turkey, Ukraine, or Belarus could be substantial, yet EU elites and publics are far from reconciled to further enlargements.
Keywords: accession negotiations, asymmetry of power, bargaining, Common Agricultural Policy, enlargement, Europeanization, quality of democracy, Schengen, Structural and Cohesion Funds, transition periods, Turkey, Western Balkans,