The EU finds itself in a deep identity crisis. This may be summarized as follows. Westernized Europe has reached its geographical limits with Eastern enlargement. Solidarity has reached its limits due to “support fatigue” in the net contributor states. Policy integration has reached its limits and the first period of the Lisbon Strategy has been a failure. “Elite Europe” has reached its limits and people are taking to the streets or voting negatively in referendums. The reform capacity of the big founding states, Germany and France, has reached its internal limits and the EU must wait patiently while they deal with their domestic problems.

This is not a fatal paralysis of the EU, just a temporary pause while it regroups its forces. In order to overcome this crisis a new vision must be developed in the form of a new, “enlarged” European identity in an enlarged Europe. However, as things stand at the moment, after little more than a year Central Europe has yet to be accepted in the hearts and minds of many citizens of the EU-15, who have come to the realization, after a long period of “innocence,” that the golden days are gone. Instead, vague forms of victimization have emerged: the “Eastern invasion” is blamed for everything.

Hungary is in many ways a typical Central European state but it has also developed a number of characteristic features. Hungary is the most Europeanized East Central European country, but at the same time it suffers from deeper contradictions than its fellow new Member States. Amongst the latter Hungary is an enthusiast for EU democracy and further integration, including the EU institutions and Constitution. In this way it demonstrates not only its centuries-long attachment to a European identity but also a high level of dissatisfaction with domestic developments. This dissatisfaction has been generated by the most virulent “Kulturkampf” in Central Europe and the extreme party polarization generated by the birth pangs of the unified rightist party FIDESZ–Hungarian Civic Union. However, the new Central European Member States have much in common, not least “Kulturkampf.” They have a common history with and share the goal of “catching up” with Europe. Before accession, all of them experienced a democratic deficit, followed by a post-accession crisis, coming under the twofold pressure of meeting EU requirements (external) and the demand for social consolidation (internal). The new Member States have to cope with both a quantitative and a qualitative catching-up process and consolidate their membership, which will entail membership of the eurozone and implementation of the Lisbon Strategy. The EU has not made these tasks any easier for them. At the same time, consolidating membership for the new members is a positive form of “enforced development” and represents a great historical opportunity. However, the EU must also realize that the new Member States are still heavily occupied with coping with a pre-Lisbon Agenda (restructuring, among other things), although common efforts to redesign the Financial Framework for 2007–2013 could help to overcome the EU’s identity crisis.