Can Europe still expand?

"To many Eurocrats, 2006 was eastern Europe's year of living dangerously: there were riots in Budapest, scary populists joined governments in both Poland and Slovakia and there is no government at all in the Czech Republic", notes the weekly. "Arguably, these events show the opposite of what the doomsters claim: even in a bad year, the travails of the new members have not disrupted the union much. But the critics still complain that expansion is a process that continues to cause trouble even (or especially) after it is over and the applicants have become members. ... The EU has benefited hugely from its expansion, through larger markets and the creation of more efficient pan-European multinationals (among other things). It would be damaged by enlargement's failure, which could easily produce foreign-policy horrors in the eastern Mediterranean or in the western Balkans."

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