The western Balkan applicants have thus had to contend with a process that is now managed on a more intergovernmental basis than was the big bang of 2004, and which has, at times, been held hostage to member states’ selfish bilateral demands. Enlargement was traditionally viewed as an area where national interests would be more readily set aside than in conventional EU settings: the normative dimension of the process seemed to demand a more community-oriented approach to decision-making.