In this lecture, we will introduce students to the institutional, legal and political context of enlargement within the EU, and preview and examine the fifth enlargement's likely effects. We will examine the preconditions for reform, and develop a simple model of development, trade policy, and mobility.
Over the weeks we've seen a series of increasingly analytical approaches to exploring European integration. This week we'll look at putting two approaches together: a descriptive, political economy framework for describing the system as a whole, and an analytical model describing the potential effects of trade policy on integration for the accession countries.
In May 2004, 10 new countries joined the EU, and Bulgaria and Romania became members in 2007. Croatia, Turkey and Macedonia are candidate countries. The EU is considering the possibility of further enlargements to countries in the Western Balkans, which could eventually include Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Albania.
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The ongoing EU enlargement process raises fundamental questions about the future of the Union. Will expanding membership lead to a change in identity of the EU? Is widening on this scale compatible with deepening? Will the EU be condemned to endless arguing about the relative size of contributions to and receipts from the Community budget? Will an expanded membership require fundamental changes in EU economic and cohesion policy and the Common Agricultural Policy after 2013 (when a new financial perspective begins)? Will the Lisbon Treaty be ratified, and will it provide the EU with an institutional framework that enables it to avoid deadlock in decision-making, and at the same time increase its transparency and democratic accountability? The EU is committed to further enlargements, but where should its borders end?
Lecture Slides
Handout. (Right click to download)
Further Reading/Viewing
Antonis Adam and Thomas Moutos, The Political Economy of EU Enlargement: Or, Why Japan is not a Candidate Country?
Friedrich Heinemann, The political economy of EU enlargement and the Treaty of Nice
Baldwin, Richard, Joe Francois, and Richard Portes, 1997, The costs and benefits of EU enlargement to the East, Economic Policy 24, 125-176,
(You must be in college to download these papers)
Catherine Drew and Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, EU Enlargement in 2007: No Warm Welcome for Labor Migrants
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