Enlargement and the new outsiders

The enlargement of the European Union will establish a new relationship between the Union and the 'outsider' states that lie outside that process. Surveys in the first half of 2000 in four of these states - Belarus, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine - found that attitudes towards the Union and the prospect of their own country's admission were generally positive. At the same time there were high levels of uncertainty, and levels of knowledge about EU institutions were very modest. Focus groups confirmed these findings, with frequent confusion between the EU and other international organizations, and considerable doubt about whether their own country was itself 'European'. But there was evidence that more committed democrats were more enthusiastic about the EU, and their own country's admission; and more generally, that 'Europeanness' was understood in terms of the kinds of cultural and living standards that were characteristic of EU Member States. If enlargement widens those differences, it is likely to open new divisions within a continent that had apparently been overcoming the differences that were a product of the cold war.