The conference presented important insights of social sciences and humanities concerning the transformation process and formulated policy recommendations for deepening the integration of the European Union's Eastern and Western members or with regard to future enlargements. The speakers of the conference, whether contemporary political actors, researchers or representatives of many European institutions entered into genuine discussion about both the critical interpretation of and the lessons to learn from the quarter-century long transition and enlargement process. They also put in relief remarkable coherence in their approach to the worrying political and military developments in Ukraine and along the Eastern borders of the EU.

Antoaneta Dimitrova is co-coordinator of MAXCAP a European Union funded research program of a nine-partner consortium of academic, policy, dissemination and management excellence that will create new and strengthen existing links within and between the academic and the policy world on matters relating to the current and future enlargement of the EU.