Dr. Nathaniel Copsey, CEELBAS research fellow at the University of Birmingham, has been awarded £22,464 by the ESRC for a project on Poland’s power and influence in the European Union. The project will focus primarily on Poland’s influence on the EU’s relations with its eastern neighbours: its niche area of expertise. In addition to this, however, he plans to investigate the wider question of what determines national preference formation on EU policy in Poland, which necessarily involves looking at other policy domains, such as institutional issues (attitudes towards the Constitutional/Reform treaties), the Common Agricultural Policy, and the community budget.

The second part of the study has a comparative element and will involve collaboration with other scholars working on the issue of what determines national preference formation in the other new Member States – precisely in those countries that are covered by the CEELBAS project. Outputs from the project will include both academic papers and a policy-relevant pamphlet.

The grant includes cofunding for two workshops to be held in partnership with CEELBAS and a local think tank in Poland and the UK once the project’s data has been gathered and the initial analysis completed. Further details will follow in 2009. If you are interested in contributing to one of these workshops, please contact Nat Copsey at n.copsey@bham.ac.uk