Something old, something new: Eastness in European Union enlargement

Abstract

This article investigates how the notion of Eastness informs the discourse of European Union (EU) enlargement. Eastness here refers to an inscription of identity — a process by which places, events and societal developments are endowed with a likeness to the ‘East’ as distinct from ‘Europe’. Drawing examples from academic scholarship on EU enlargement, the article outlines how the inscription of Eastness functions in the enlargement discourse, and how its functions have changed since the end of the Cold War. I argue that the erstwhile East (of Europe) as a territorially defined periphery of Europe has been layered into multiple peripheries with varying degrees of Eastness. One might say that parts of the former East have become less East-like and more Europe-like, while others are still endowed with a high degree of Eastness. At the same time, European identity is still constructed in terms of the East. Economic, political and social developments in East-Central Europe are still conceived in terms of proximity to, or distance from, an idealized Europe or Europeanness. The situation is neither one of a static and monolithic othering nor of the dissolution of Eastness. The East is best understood not as a location but as a tendency, one always inscribed in degrees, shades and flavours. The challenge is not to unearth a core meaning or location of the East, but the specific and often unremarkable processes by which Eastness is inscribed onto places.