Please note that the EPERN was originally launched as the Opposing Europe Research Network (OERN) but in August 2003 the Network was retitled to reflect a broadening out of the Network's research focus. EPERN Working Papers are therefore a continuation of the original OERN Working Paper Series.

The School of Slavonic and East European Studies is one of the world's leading specialist institutions, and the largest national centre in the UK, for the study of Central, Eastern and South-East Europe and Russia; it possesses one of the most important research libraries in its field.

The enlarged European Union will be surrounded, from Russia to Morocco, with states economically dependent on access to its markets, concerned about cross-border travel and trade, and anxious for their voices to be heard in EU negotiations. Since 1989, West European governments have successfully...

While seizing the historic opportunity to reunify Europe by its enlargement to central and Eastern European countries, the EU neglected the strategic preparations for enlargement. It failed to invest enough into analysing the consequences of accession to 10 members for its internal functioning....

The evaluation of the European Commission (Commission)’s co-operation with Egypt over the period 1998-2008 has two main objectives: - to provide the relevant external Co-operation Services of the Commission and the wider public with an overall independent assessment of the Commission’s past...

The economic gap between the EU and three candidate countries - Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey - is significant. Living standards, as measured by GDP per capita at PPP, are less than one third of the level prevailing in the former EU-15 u0096 and about half of the average level in the new member...

The first European Parliament elections in the new member states in Central and Eastern Europe demonstrated a profound paradox in terms of being a feedback process of European integration. At the elite level, the accession to the European Union has offered political parties and their leaders...