IU holds conference on EU's expansion

Experts on Europe and the former Soviet Union met in Bloomington to attend a two-day conference on the eastward expansion of the European Union. \n"Public Opinion About the EU in Post-Communist Eastern Europe," an event sponsored by IU, the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation and the University of Oxford took place Friday and Saturday. Professor Robert Rohrschneider of IU and Professor Stephen Whitefield of Oxford organized the conference.\nIn 2004, 10 nations -- the Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia -- will be added to the EU. The focus of this conference was on those nations, which were formerly members of the Soviet Union, particularly Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. \nSix panels each took a different issue for discussion. The first three panels were held Friday and titled "The EU Context of Accession," "The Party Context of Accession" and "What Explains Cross-National Variations in EU Support in Post-Communist Countries?" The final three discussions took place Saturday and concerned "Public Opinion about the EU in Post-Communist Europe" and "The Dynamics of Public Opinion about the EU in East-Central Europe, 1990-2004."\nAt each of the six panels, two to three professors presented papers they had either completed or were working on concerning the particular issue in question. All told, 13 bodies of research were presented at the conference. \nHenry Hale, IU professor of political science, said the University was an excellent venue for experts on these issues from around the world to gather.\n"The European Studies Institute plus the Russia and East European Institute … and with experts like Dr. Rohrschneider who are working directly on these issues, (IU) is kind of a center of gravity," he said.\nDespite lively disagreement on many of the works presented, everyone in attendance concurred that the topic of the EU expansion to former Soviet nations was an important issue that needed to be addressed.\nIU professor Jack Bielasiak said the new additions to the EU have consequences for the U.S.\n"The eastward expansion of the EU brings together two different parts of Europe," he said. "There are some differences between old Europe, such as Germany and France, which want to keep the U.S. apart from Europe and some countries like Poland which have been supportive of the US."\nProfessor Joshua Tucker of Princeton University, who presented a paper at the conference, said this issue is important to address because of its importance to the world.\n"We are seeing a fundamental political development in these nations," he said. "Their shift from communist to post-communist democracies, and now to EU members represents a crucial issue which we must study and follow."\n-- Contact staff writer Michael Zennie at mzennie@indiana.edu.