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Quo Vadis EU?
In May 2004, ten new members will enter the European Union (EU): Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Malta, and Cyprus. ... This will be the largest expansion the EU has ever undergone and it will have a great impact on the Union.
Is the way the EU is going about this enlargement best for the interests of its new and old members? ... And, most significantly, will this be a good thing for the EU as a whole? ... With the markets not yet saturated like they are in many current EU countries, there is a huge demand for Western products. ... Towards this end, the new members look forward to the boost to their industries they hope EU entry will bring, due to their currently very low cost of labor coupled to highly educated work forces and the fresh absence of any barriers to trade.
Each of the Central European countries has held referendums with large majorities of the populations voting for EU entry. ...
When these poorer countries join the EU, their interests will lie in opposing Brussels-driven policies that impose new and costly regulatory burdens on government and industry; something that they already tend to see as tyranny of a bureaucratic kind. ...
One can also expect there to be a lot of tensions between old and new EU members. ...
Despite making it much easier for the current EU countries to export goods to the East, the enlargement may actually do them more economic harm than good.
Approximate Word count = 1154
Approximate Pages = 4.6
(250 words per page double spaced)
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