• Bulletin article by Carl Bildt, 01 February 2006

    The Balkans are returning to the top of the EU’s agenda. UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari has begun to negotiate Kosovo’s future, while Montenegrins will probably vote in April on whether to break with Serbia.

  • Essay by Katinka Barysch, 06 January 2006

    The EU's enlargement to the East has been an economic success. Trade between the old and the new members is thriving. Foreign investment by West European companies has helped to create hundreds of thousands of jobs in Central and Eastern Europe, and it has generated multi-billion euro profits for the investing companies.

  • Bulletin article by Urban Ahlin , 01 December 2005

    The first time that I visited Belarus, I noticed that the streets were clean, the subway ran on schedule and the people were very hospitable. On the surface, the people of Minsk seem to enjoy life.

  • Bulletin article by Katinka Barysch, 01 December 2005

    Turkey remains far from its goal of entering the EU, despite starting accession talks in October and gaining a broadly favourable progress report from the European Commission in November.

  • Working paper by Mark Leonard, 04 November 2005

    When Iran restarted its nuclear programme in August 2005, it seemed to obliterate two years of EU efforts to persuade Tehran not to build a nuclear bomb. However, Mark Leonard argues that the EU should persevere with diplomacy.

  • Opinion piece by Charles Grant
    Newsweek, 10 October 2005

    So, is Turkey to start membership talks with the European Union? The reception could hardly be more hostile. As the public sees it, the EU is big enough already. Political leaders from France's Nicolas Sarkozy to Germany's Angela Merkel are opposed.

  • Bulletin article by Charles Grant, 03 October 2005

    All over Europe, politicians are becoming more hostile to further EU enlargement. One reason is that electorates in many countries oppose it. Another is that the EU’s ‘widening’ has always been closely linked to its ‘deepening’.

  • Policy brief by Charles Grant, 03 October 2005

    All public buildings in downtown Tbilisi fly EU flags next to Georgian ones. The flags are a symbol of Georgia's determination to integrate itself into the West after the 'rose revolution', and a reminder of the potency of the European dream outside the European Union's borders.