The workshop "Ten Years on: Evaluating Eastern Enlargement" took place from 11 to 15 April 2014 in Salamanca as part of the joint sessions of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). MAXCAP co-coordinator Antoaneta Dimitrova directed the workshop together with Aron Buzogány from Freie Universität Berlin. The workshop was an opportunity to disseminate MAXCAP’s ideas and questions among a wider network of scholars interested in enlargement related issues and also an opportunity to present current MAXCAP research.


Antoaneta Dimitrova presented MAXCAP’s framework and research questions to the participants in the workshop. A number of scholars from MAXCAP partner institutions presented their research on the outcomes and the impact of EU membership on the Central and Eastern European member states and current candidates. MAXCAP scholars' contributions included papers on explaining variation in post-accession compliance by Asya Zhelyazkova (ETH Zurich), on the scientific and policy implications of the EU' Eastern enlargement by highlighting the importance of domestic conditions to make EU conditionality work by Antoaneta Dimitrova (Leiden University), on the EU's goals and means driving economic and regulatory integration since the Eastern enlargement by László Bruszt (European University Institute) and Julia Langbein (Freie Universität Berlin), on the effects of immigration from CEE member states on public support for European integration in the old member states by Dimiter Toshkov and Elitsa Kortenska (both Leiden University), and on the limits of the EU to promote domestic political change in current candidates by Adam Fagan (London School of Economics).

The conference papers can be accessed through the website of the ECPR here.