There is an official enthusiasm about the eastern enlargement of the EU. A select group of advanced transition countries (the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hungary and Poland) may enter the EU in the future. Nonetheless, the cost of the eastern (to a large extent agricultural) enlargement is not fully understood. That holds true both for the applicant countries and the EU. The actual costs could be assessed following the end of the seventh Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) that was supposed to prepare the EU for the coming decades. At the same time, the IGC was expected to set the final terms of entry. No matter how settled, the eastern enlargement will be very costly, the EU will have to ‘pay’ for the cohesion and agriculture, while the applicant countries will have to implement acquis communautaire. The accepted countries could not expect to be fully absorbed into the EU before 2015! An arrangement such as the European Economic Space (full membership minus agriculture, minus labour mobility and minus regional funds) may be a more workable solution for the transition countries, and for the EU. Full membership may be necessary in the end as the foundation of European integration is the preservation of peace and liberty in Europe. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.