ENLARGEMENTS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

Enlargements of the European Union



Enlargements of the European Union

Introduction

The European Union has been enlarging since it was created in 1952. It has grown from six, nine, and twelve to fifteen current Member States to finally absorb a big-bang enlargement of ten members. On May 1, 2004, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia joined the Club. The European Union is today at the crossroads of its development. Either, it successfully integrates the new members, overcoming the challenges of the process by deeply reforming its current structure; or, it fails and it is a true stalemate for its future. The rejection of the Constitution by France and Netherlands hinders this process of deeper integration that would allow the European Union to adapt and function more effectively.

What is ultimately at stake is the future of Europe and its capacity to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. Indeed, the European Union has a historical opportunity to reverse the division of the European continent and to contribute towards a stable and political and economic order throughout Europe resting on fundamental values and principles of democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights and minorities. It is also a unique opportunity for Europe to speak with a single voice on the international stage and become a true political player rather than just an economic giant 'with soft teeth. The purpose of this essay is to provide the implications for business operating at a national and regional level of the 2004 and 2007 enlargements of the European Union. (Niebuhr, 2009, 28)

Discussion

Deepening and Widening

In addition to such ambiguity pertaining to the ends of integration, the process itself has been an uneven mixture of deepening and widening. Extending cooperation to ever-new fields required different legal and procedural arrangements given the unwillingness of member states to delegate powers to the European Commission in certain areas. The same rules governing European competition policy or common agriculture policy could hardly be applied to the European justice and home affairs, let alone to the European Common Foreign and Defense Policy. Territorial widening of the integration project has generated yet further complexity.

The EU has enlarged several times since the United Kingdom (UK), Denmark, and Ireland joined the original six member states of the EEC in 1973. With each new enlargement, there have been institutional and procedural changes in the EU system. New members have imported into the EU their diverse cultures, political concerns, and legal procedures. This has especially been the case with the “big bang” enlargement in 2004 that saw the entry of eight new member states from Central and Eastern Europe (followed by the entry of Romania and Bulgaria in 2007).

These new member states are significantly poorer than their Western counterparts and are unlikely to close the wealth gap in the following decades. Their democratic institutions are still relatively unstable, and their economic, legal, and administrative structures are undeveloped when compared with those in the older ...