A simple exercise of tracing democratic performance (based on Freedom House Nations in Transit scores) during the process of enlargement shows that accession countries progressed in absolute terms less than Albania in the same interval, and that their important positive achievements (why they remain more democratic than Albania) date from before the start of negotiations with European Union. The paper argues that it is Europe as an incentive, and not EU enlargement itself, which has a catalyst effect on democracy development. Quite to the contrary, enlargement, with its focus on formal institutions, fails to bring about deep changes in the modus operandi of the state apparatus, with the result that it achieves only superficial Europeanization. Examples used in this paper are mostly from Romania and Bulgaria, but other accession countries are discussed as well.