Foreign policies of Eastern EU states

This chapter analyses Europeanisation in eight Eastern European Union (EU) Member States, namely in Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania. It provides foreign policy preferences among the participants are so diverse that, on many occasions, it proved impossible to arrive at common positions, such as in the immediate follow-up to the crisis in Georgia. Starkly diverging positions on Russia make any meaningful co-operation in foreign policy difficult. The chapter also provides special attention to the role-conception each country holds of its participation in the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), the areas when it has had greatest ambitions to change the European Foreign Policy as well as the 'special relationships' and sensitive issues. The chapter describes about teasing out any potential trends in the European-isation processes and tensions between nationalisation versus Europeanisation throughout the region. It also analyses how they responded to the participation in the Common Foreign and Security Policy.