Geographical extension of the European Union has been a decisive feature of its dynamic development since its beginnings. The attraction of the EU has resulted in five enlargement rounds over its 50 years of history, an over four-times growth in its membership, and a line of European countries aiming to join its structures in the future. As it has been expanding its external borders, it has also been transforming countries through benchmarks and conditionality that had to be met as the most essential eligibility criteria for membership. It is this leverage of the EU that can achieve political, economic and social standardization that the conference aims to examine.

Expanding ones zone of influence by the way of norm diffusion has been referred to as ‘soft power’, a term coined by Harvard professor Joseph Nye. Soft power in case of the EU comes to mind most prominently through enlargement policy that successfully contributed to democratic consolidation and the establishment of market economy most recently in Central Europe. Enlargement policy works through democratic conditionality setting benchmarks in the framework of the Copenhagen criteria, and through ‘acquis conditionality’ that requires the implementation of the legal framework. However, there are reasons to argue that it is not only enlargement policy that carries characteristics of soft power in it, but also other fields of EU foreign relations that are increasingly making use of soft power instruments. The conference systematically addresses various targets of EU foreign policy and analyzes the type and degree of influence that it asserts. In addition to a conceptual overview of EU soft power, each conference panel also examines relevant policy issues and analyzes the role that the EU plays in various conflict situations – i.e. the Georgia – Russia conflict, Gaza conflict, energy conflict.