Five years after the historical 2004 enlargement of the European Union, we will reflect about the state of the European Union as well as on new challenges for the discipline that follow from it. What has changed in the working style, the problem-solving capacity and the quality of governance in the EU? Has the EU proved to be capable of absorbing its new members? How about the prospects of additional accessions and the EU’s relations with its neighbourhood? What are the repercussions of enlargement for core EU policies? How does enlargement impact on domestic policy-making?

The conference is intended to be a major stock-taking exercise in the discipline of European Studies. Enlargement has triggered substantial new research within the discipline. As the actual ‘event’ of enlargement is over, do we have to turn to new issue areas? What new questions open up for researchers?

This two-day international conference addresses colleagues working in the broader field of European Studies including political science, law, economics, history and sociology. The event features a mix of pre-organised plenary sessions, four research paper sessions and a keynote address by a senior policy-maker from one of the new member states. The plenary sessions focus on institutional development, foreign affairs and the EU's neighbourhood, as well as social policy respectively. The research paper sessions will review a number of recent researches on enlargement and policy-making within the specific context of a Union of 27.

The conference is jointly organised and supported by the Volkswagen Foundation, AKI-DVPW and UACES. It will be hosted by the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary.