New Members’ Public Diplomacy

Abstract

The 2004 and 2007 enlargements of the European Union (EU) symbolize the EU’s shift to the east. They brought in 12 new member countries, including ten former communist states—Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia—constituting a region named Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). This chapter focuses on the former communist countries (it does not cover Cyprus and Malta, which also joined the EU in 2004). Their public diplomacy (PD) makes a suitable object for analysis for four main reasons. First, the countries are newcomers to PD, as it was the EU accession process—and in some cases joining NATO¹—that triggered the work on their strategies in this field, thus providing the study with a clear starting point. Second, the fact that these countries underwent the transition process to democracy after 1989 is reflected in their foreign policy strategies and their approach to PD. Transition to democracy should thus be defined as an important context for the analysis. Third, their PD—the countries are small or medium sized—has been strongly shaped by geopolitics, particularly by their relations with big neighbors. The trend has so far been reflected in their inclination to “bandwagon” in international relations. Fourth, marketing communication, branding, and public relations within the sphere of business, trade, and political communication on the internal stage preceded realization of the importance of using PD externally.