It's a well-worn cliché that every policy has costs, not just benefits, as well as unintended consequences. The eastward enlargement of the European Union in 2004 and after is a case very much in point. Fifteen years on there is greater or lesser dissatisfaction both in Brussels and in the new member states that joined. This book explores the whys and wherefores from an unusual and original perspective. The author, György Schöpflin, worked for nearly three decades as an academic at the London School of Economics and then as a member of the European Parliament for a decade and a half. By and large, academics seldom have the chance of seeing how theory operates in the real world, what politics is like at the coal-face. The book reflects both dimensions and is indispensable for anyone who wants to know how political theory works in practice.