How many Europes? The European Union, eastward enlargement and uneven development

Eastward enlargement of the European Union (EU) is rarely discussed in term s of the organizational and ideological condition of the existing Union. In this paper the debate over eastern enlargement is related directly to a sh ift within the EU from a dual focus on global economic competitiveness and the compensation of lagging regions to an increasingly singular focus on Eu ropean competitiveness. Seen in this light, the goal of a single Europe wit h relatively similar levels of development everywhere is being replaced by an emerging threefold division of the continent Into 'core' Europe (itself increasingly differentiated across policy areas), a 'peripheral' Europe of potential eastern members perpetually on the road to full membership, and a n 'external' Europe excluded from membership but open to use by businesses from the core,This geographical taxonomy rests on the growing reliance of t he EU on a neo-liberal economic ideology that sees uneven development withi n Europe as helping the global competitiveness of the EU as a whole, using the model of the United States as its inspiration.