Eastern Enlargement of the EU: a Topsy-Turvy Endgame or Permanent Disillusionment

Miroslav N. Jovanovic ()
Additional contact information
Miroslav N. Jovanovic: UN Economic Commission for Europe, Postal: UN ECE, Transport Division, Palais des Nations, 1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland

Journal of Economic Integration, 2004, vol. 19, 830-868

Abstract:

The Treaty of Nice (2001) strongly protects the interests of the current 15 European Union member countries. The new voting structure in the enlarged European Union preserves the existing members blocking influence over new policies. In addition, there is a cap on the Unions total expenditure. It is on these terms that the European Union is ready to enlarge eastwards. Eight countries with economies in transition (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia) and two market economies (Cyprus and Malta) are due to join the European Union in 2004. Bulgaria and Romania may follow, but not before 2007. The final operational entry conditions set by the European Councils in Brussels and in Copenhagen (2002) are such that this enlargement may be relatively cheap for the European Union in financial terms, but much costlier and slower for the accession countries than expected by politicians, both in the European Union and in the accession countries. The reasons for this include the self-imposed limits on European Union expenditure and the increasingly stringent standards that come from the ever-growing acquis communautaire that are costly to introduce, implement and enforce, but enlargement will take place for political reasons.

Keywords: accession countries; enlargement; acquis communautaire; funds; competition; European Council (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:integr:0291

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Integration is currently edited by Seongeun Kim

More articles in Journal of Economic Integration from Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Yunhoe Kim ().