The paper is concerned with the question of the extent to which the European Union’s external democratization policy changed in the aftermath of the 2004/2007/2013 enlargements to the East. Accepting the premise that the Central and Eastern European member states harbor their own ideas about whether and how to promote democracy abroad, a study assessing the extent to which these preferences are being translated into the EU-wide external democratization framework merits a closer look. The paper sets out to map the diversity that exists among the CEECs with regard to external democratization policy and the concrete preferences the individual countries attempt to upload to the EU level. Can any regional clusters among the CEECs be identified and if so, do they proceed jointly when pursuing their preferences? The paper hopes to be able to assess the extent to which the previously designed EU toolkit of external democratization mechanisms has changed.
