The war in Iraq, social unrest accompanying controversial proposal of the Bolkstein directive on services, and the tax-system reform in Germany ? all these events have recently made obvious that the enlargement of the EU is not only a matter of dealing with quantitative differences in terms of GDP and living standards, but also the problem of qualitative differences in terms of world outlooks and orientations of elites and wider structural socio-economic and regulatory features that may have profound consequences on the institutional operation of the European Union as a whole. What are then wider implications of the Eastern enlargement for the social and economic model of the European Union? In order to answer this question, I deal with the specific features of the states of ?New Europe? by investigating their strategies of ?transition? from state socialism to capitalism. Thus, I analyze specific mode of socio-economic governance that has crystallised in Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs). These strategies and their outcomes, however, cannot be seen in isolation from the strategy of the European Union towards these countries in the process of transition. Then, I investigate the European regulatory framework of socio-economic governance as crystallised so far. Finally, I assess the implications of the Eastern enlargement for the European regulatory framework, its social content, and consequences for the European social model, on the one hand, and consequences of EU enlargement on the regulatory modes of socio-economic governance in CEECs, on the other hand.It is argued, among others, that the new EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe have reoriented their regulatory structures to pursue a neo-liberal competitive strategy of foreign direct investment attraction based on the Ricardian economies of comparative advantage. This strategy, however, is not only product of indigenous forces but also an outcome of EU?s Ostpolitik in the process of enlargement. In the European Union, a regulatory framework of socio-economic governance has crystallised around the project of EMU. An essential feature of this mode of governance is an asymmetry between supranational monetary and intergovernmental fiscal policy that pushes EU states into competitive austerity restrictions. I argue that EMU?s institutional structure has a neoliberal social content. Eastern Enlargement has increased strains of this regulatory framework as it exacerbates its centrifugal effects of uneven development and tightens the regulatory competition. After speculating on viability of CEECs?s niche strategies that would further increase the difficulties in the core, I make a case for a progressive European social and economic model that would leave the impasse of monetarist supply-side solutions that have been pursued both in old and new Europe so far. However, I conclude in a rather pessimistic fashion since the configuration of social forces within Europe is not very favourable to such a strategy and the Eastern enlargement does not make this situation better. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]