Marta Szpala is a political analyst specialising in the Western Balkans and the EU’s neighbourhood and enlargement policy. She holds an MA in International Relations and previously studied Slavic Studies at Warsaw University. Today, she is a PhD candidate at the Graduate School for Social Research of the Polish Academy of Science, as well as Senior Fellow and the chief expert on the Western Balkans at the Centre for Eastern Studies in Warsaw. She also works as a journalist for Polish weekly magazine Tygodnik Powszechny. She has participated in various international research projects devoted to EU policy in the Western Balkans as a research assistant, researcher, and project coordinator.