The enlargement of the European Union

Abstract

This collection of essays reflects on the fifth enlargement of the European Union, projected to take place in 2004. It examines the process of enlargement, its impact both on the candidate States and on the institutions and policies of the European Union. In so doing, it discusses these issues from a variety of perspectives - legal, economic, and political - reflecting the different dimensions of the enlargement. This enlargement will be unlike any other, not only in terms of its scale, and the unprecedented nature of the lengthy and complex pre-accession process, but also in its wider implications for the future direction of the European Union itself and for the whole of Europe. The contributions thus focus not only on the adjustments having to be made by the candidate States and the EU’s institutions, but also on enlargement as an interaction between the candidate States and the European Union, and between the EU and the wider world community. Policies which have developed and matured during this enlargement, such as conditionality, also have effects on regions and States which are outside the current enlargement process, such as the Balkans. A greatly enlarged EU also has implications for the EU’s trading partners and for its role within the WTO. Different chapters deal with the pre-accession process, the enlargement negotiations, the economic impact of enlargement on the candidate States, membership conditionality as applied by the European Union, the need to adapt the EU’s institutional structure to cope with enlargement, and the impact of enlargement on the external policies of both the EU and the candidate States.