A Special Issue entitled “Eastern Enlargement Ten Years On: Transcending the East-West Divide?” has been published by the Journal of Common Market Studies (JCMS) and includes several contributions by MAXCAP researchers. This special issue examines the consequences of the European Union’s Eastern enlargement ten years after it has been initiated.

The volume reaches three surprising conclusions: since 2004, the EU's economic effects have been more far-reaching than its political effects, all of the new member states have had problems with democratic consolidation and, despite four years of intense crisis in the Eurozone, both the EU's enlargement and neighborhood-shaping efforts have continued. The issue also sets these economic, political and institutional developments in the context of the long-standing east–west divide in Europe, and asks whether EU membership for post-communist countries amends the continent's traditionally persistent divisions. Notable achievements of EU enlargement notwithstanding, the volume points to the continuing important differences between east and west and highlights the issue areas in which the EU transcends but also reinforces the centuries-old partition.

MAXCAP scholars’ contributions include articles on transcending or redrawing Europe’s East-West divide by Julia Langbein (Freie Universität Berlin), on post-accession policy-making in Bulgaria and Romania by Antoaneta Dimitrova (Leiden University) and on democratic backsliding after accession in Hungary and Romania by Ulrich Sedelmeier (London School of Economics and Political Science).

These articles can be accessed through the website of the Journal of Common Market Studies here.