Introduction
Since the European Union (EU) decided to open its door to former communist countries, it had three rounds of enlargement. In the so-called ‘big bang enlargement’ in 2004, the EU admitted ten new members –three Baltic countries, four Visegrad countries, Malta, Cyprus, and Slovenia. In 2007, Bulgaria and Romania joined, and Croatia in 2013. Europeanization studies defined enlargement as a new phenomenon that belongs to the field of European integration but possesses distinctively separate characteristics in terms of policy issues, relations between states and its impact on, primarily, acceding states. Europeanization theorists explained how EU rules, in a top-down approach, are being transposed into a candidate state making significant changes in a domestic environment.1 Later work on Europeanization deepened the analysis by including the study of local actors. It was not enough to study how enlargement is affecting candidate countries, but also how these countries are affecting enlargement. Local actors are not necessarily passive recipients or responsive enthusiastic partners. More often than not, they resist change, fake reforms, or actively subvert the process.2
