EU enlargement By Ian Bond
Submitted as evidence by the Centre for European Reform for the review of the balance of competences between the United Kingdom and the European Union.
Since the UK, Ireland and Denmark joined the European Economic Community in 1973, it has grown from a common market of nine countries with a population of 257 million to a Union of 28 countries with a population of 504 million. The EU’s GDP has increased more than five times in the process. Three more countries, including Turkey with its population of 76 million, are in accession negotiations. Four more Balkan countries could start accession negotiations in the next few years; and a number of Eastern Partnership countries, including Ukraine, have clearly expressed political aspirations to join the EU. The UK has traditionally been a champion of enlargement, often as an alternative to increased integration among the existing members of the Union. But it is not clear whether this is still true, not least because of increased concern about the impact of the free movement of labour in an enlarged Union. The UK is worried about mass migration in a Union where the GDP per capita of the poorest recent accession country (Bulgaria) in purchasing power parity terms is less than 40 per cent of that of the EU15. With a number of other member-states, particularly in Western and Southern Europe, unenthusiastic about further enlargement, has the EU grown as much as it is going to (barring a few small countries in South-East Europe)? Or would the EU and the UK benefit from giving the enlargement process new impetus? Because future rounds of enlargement are likely to include mostly poorer countries in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe (with the possible exceptions of Iceland and Norway – neither showing much interest in joining the EU at present), this paper concentrates on the impact of the enlargements of 2004 and later, and possible future enlargements to include the remaining countries of the Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia), Turkey and those Eastern Partnership countries which have signed Association Agreements this year (Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine).
EU ENLARGEMENT July 2014
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