In this volume, well-known scholars examine the challenges facing the EU at the start of the Eastern enlargement, whose first wave should be decided at the end of 2002 and implementation in 2004-2006. This enlargement is not to be underestimated as it involves in the region of about 100 million inhabitants. Populations deeply involved in European history will again be part of the continental polis, but ten years ago, these same populations emerged for about half a century of Soviet dominated and planned economy. A complex net of similarities and differences makes the Eastern enlargement something different from previous episodes of EU expansion.