On 14th January, 2015 Leiden University, together with the Representation of the European Commission organized an open policy briefing to present first research findings on citizens’ discourses about EU enlargement in four European countries – the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Poland and Serbia. The event, held in The House of Europe in The Hague, was open to experts, officials, media representatives as well as civil society and a wider public.

MAXCAP partner Leiden University presented first findings from a series of bottom-up, explorative studies conducted on citizens’ perceptions and understandings of the last EU enlargements rounds and possible future enlargements. Discourses among citizens on EU enlargement have been studied in The Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Serbia and FYR Macedonia and provide first indications for identifying the social limits to the EU’s integration capacity related to citizens’ understandings of the last and future enlargement.

Furthermore, results from a study of media discourses in Germany and Turkey and results of research into the effects of immigration from Central and Eastern Europe on attitudes to European integration were presented.