• Policy brief by Charles Grant, 06 April 2006

    On 19 March 2006 the people of Belarus vote in a presidential election. The result of an election that has been neither free nor fair is certain: President Alyaksandr Lukashenka will be re-elected. What is not certain is how the EU reacts.

  • 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 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.

  • 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’.

  • Opinion piece by Katinka Barysch
    The Wall Street Journal, 27 September 2005

    The talks on Turkey's accession to the EU are scheduled to start on Monday. But public support for Turkish EU entry continues to fall: less than one-third of voters in the "old" EU support Turkish membership, according to the EU pollster Eurobarometer.

  • Report by Katinka Barysch, Steven Everts, Heather Grabbe, 01 September 2005

    A majority of voters in the EU, and many politicians, oppose Turkish accession. The essays in this report examine the fears concerning Turkey's membership and argue that many of them are misplaced.