'well-structured and convincing book...at last, I have finally encountered a book that deals with the complexities of European Union conditionality without surrending to the easy depiction of the colonial-type pure power asymmetry which leaves no room for counteractions...this book constitutes one of the most in-depth and best documented studies on not only the standing criteria to comply with and the difficulties of implementation, but also the informal pressures (page 2) which offer a deeper understanding of enlargement process as a dynamic ineraction between institutional incentives and rules and domestic transition factors...the main interest lies in the dynamic research methods of the authors, largely based on a number of very valuable interviews with EU officials and the local and regional elites'. - Cristina Blanco Sio-Lopez - Environment and Planning