Under the impact of accelerated globalization, transnational integration and international security concerns, the geopolitics of Europe's borders and border regions has become an area of critical interest. The progressive enlargement of the EU has positioned its borders at the heart of recent discussions on the changing nature of the EU, the meaning of 'Europe' and what constitutional shape a more politically unified Europe might take. With enlargement, the EU must elaborate strategies to contend with a fiercely competitive world - and to build fortress-like defences against perceived tensions arising from greater cultural mixing and threats such as terrorism. The authors build up an integral picture of the EU's internal and external borders and borderlands to reveal the processes of re-bordering and social change currently taking place in Europe. They explore issues such as security, immigration, economic development and changing social and political attitudes, as well as the EU's relations with the Islamic world and other world powers. The book embraces an array of disciplinary, ideological and theoretical perspectives, offering detailed case studies of different border regions and the concerns of the local inhabitants, while engaging in broader discussions of developments across Europe, state policies and the EU's relations with neighbouring states. Geopolitics of European Union Enlargement will be of key interest to students and researchers in the fields of European politics, geography, international studies, sociology and anthropology.

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2010 in the subject Politics - Topic: European Union, grade: 2.0, University of Flensburg, language: English, abstract: The Eastern enlargement of the European Union in 2004 alongside the accession in 2007 of Bulgaria and Romania into the European Union has paved way for a historical shift of the Union , emergence of new borders, and emergence of new relations and policies towards new neighbours. Despite the fact that the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) might be considered as a foreign policy instrument, what seems unknown and less considered is the cost of relationship, intent of the European Union (EU) in relations with new members, interest of both sides, security and stability alongside economic and democratic space. The ENP consolidates the opinion that the limits of Europe is increasingly evasive; the thesis therefore aims at considering or analyzing the EU relations in the view of its implications stemming from the ENP policy toward Ukraine as a member of the ENP.

This is a key reference text presenting the latest first-rate approaches to the study of European enlargement. Developed and significantly expanded from a special issue of the leading Journal of European Public Policy, this new volume draws on the insights from the recently emerging theoretically-informed literature on the EU's eastern enlargement and complements these studies with original articles that combine a theoretical approach with comparative analyses. These expert contributors focus on the broader theoretical debates and their implications for the enlargement of the EU, as well as placing the enlargement of the EU within the broader context of the expansion of international organisations and the study of institutions in international relations.