A Bigger, Better Europe

8.54.00am BST (GMT +0100) Thu 22nd May 2008

When the European Union expanded in 2004 to take in eight former Communist states of central and eastern Europe, plus Cyprus and Malta, Eurosceptics hoped that this would break the organisation apart. But as Professor Helen Wallace persuasively argued in the Charlemagne Lecture*, 'A Bigger Europe - But Is It Better?', at the Polish Embassy in London this week, that didn't happen. In fact, the EU has managed to continue functioning relatively smoothly in its enlarged format despite the absence of any European constitution and the lengthy process of getting the Lisbon Treaty ratified.

Helen has argued in favour of continued enlargement of the EU (despite hostile noises from France and Austria, in particular). She is keen that some better arrangement should be made with peripheral countries currently associated through the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). She can forsee a day when Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova could be EU members - though Russia may never be ready to countenance that. In the meantime, she argued, we should set up more effective associative structures to enable ENP states both to the east and on the southern shores of the Mediterranean to develop a mutually beneficial closer cooperative relationship with the EU.

Professor Wallace is Centennial Professor, European Institute, at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is also Honorary Professor at the University of Sussex. Previously she held posts at the European University Institute, the University of Sussex, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the Civil Service College and UMIST, and she also directed the Economic and Social Research Council's 'One Europe or Several? Programme' (1998-2001).

• the Charlemagne lecture is organised annually by the Wyndham Place Charlemagne Trust

Thanks to Jonathan Fryer for the report.