Elite attitudes towards the EU in western and central eastern Europe. A tale of two europes?

The EU integration process is commonly recognised as a top-down initiative coordinated by elites. Do the differentiated patterns of EU politicisation across countries create a demarcation between two regions, namely Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe? Through the analysis of data obtained by a standardised survey questionnaire submitted to a representative sample of national political elites in ten countries, we show that elite attitudes are uneven across countries and contingent on different issues. Although the distance between elites in the two regions is significant, elite attitudes do not necessarily qualify as irreducibly Eurosceptic in Central and Eastern Europe.