Several Questions On Eu-Enlargement
1. For what reasons did countries of the „5th enlargement“ want to join the European Union?
The countries of the 5th enlargement were committed to join the European Union as they were expecting major benefits of an accession, especially for their national economy. The applicant states are in economical, political, institutional and administratively levels underdeveloped than the EU average, so that they were hoping to improve their levels in benefiting from the wealthy EU. Fortunately, the EU allocates a mutually approved pre-accession strategy and a financial assistance to improve their level of development, for example “PHARE (Poland Hungary Aid for the Reconstruction of the Economy – the programme was later extended to the other candidate member states) - Council Regulation 3906/89. This subsidises the development of infrastructure and institutions.” (Lejeune, I. and Van Denberghe, W., 2004, p. 8) (Hitiris, T., 2003, p. 211)
Furthermore, the countries of the 5th enlargement are benefiting from the large and developed market of the EU in goods, services, capital, expertise and enterprise. That allows them to exploit opportunities and making contacts to a wide variety of consumers and companies. Cheap labour for instance in the East European countries, encourages EU firms to undertake direct investments and relocating their production into areas of the candidate countries. That could decrease problems on the employment market by high unemployment rates in these EU countries where labour is more cost intensive than labour in the new member states. (Hitiris, T., 2003, p. 217) (Kuznetsov, A., 1999, pp. 325-327)
Another reason for an accession was the increasing assertiveness of Russia. The candidate member states, mostly part of the former Soviet Union were afraid of Russia’s sphere of influence, so that they were committed to become a part of a Union which has the power to oppose Russia’s influence. (Economist, 2008, p. 5)
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