Knocking on EU’s door: On the changing and conflicting metaphorical images of Croatia in selected EU press

Abstract: The goal of this paper is to analyze the metaphorical construal of Croatia’s EU accession in the political discourse of selected EU press. We first analyze the metaphorical expressions collected between 2001 and 2012 in the EU Observer, providing a stage-wise analysis of the concepts characterizing different segments of Croatia's EU journey. Next, we explore potential differences in the metaphorical EU discourse of two different EU states: Austria (Die Presse) and UK (The Guardian), the two countries that felt differently about Croatia’s EU-fitness, especially in 2005.