Svaelt - I think it's very much a question of how much a country wants to get involved in it (the EU). It's been fantastic for Ireland - from being a small country way off the coast of mainland Europe, struggling to make ends meet, we're now heavily involved in all aspects of Europe. There's not much about our sorry bunch of politicians I admire, but I do admire the way they've embraced the idea of 'Europe'. It's had a great effect on our economy, and now we're hoping that the same thing will happen for the small countries that have just joined. For countries that aren't enthusiastically involved it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, I think - because they're not in there wheeling and dealing, involved in committees, their interests aren't well represented, and they don't get as much out of it as the involved countries. In the run-up to enlargement there's been an awful lot of to-ing and fro-ing between Ireland and those small Eastern European countries, with our Eurocrats passing on our experiences of working within the EU, how to maximise your clout even if you're small. You'd be hard-pressed to find a single Irish person who didn't think the EU was a great idea. But that didn't happen by accident, fair do's to our politicians, they worked at developing strategies. enthusiastic citizen of Europe