What have been the implications of the enlargement of the EU since 2004?
In 2004, the EU undertook its most dramatic enlargement, incorporating 10 new members, mainly former communist states of central and eastern Europe. Two further members were added in 2006 (Bulgaria and Romania), bringing the total membership to 27, compared with 15 before 2004. EU enlargement since 2004 has had a number of implications:
• EU enlargement has had a profound impact on the politics of central and eastern Europe. In many ways, it completed the process started by the end of the Cold War in 1989, by reuniting eastern and western Europe, overcoming the political, economic and ideological tensions that had been dominant since 1945. Enlargement has therefore helped to consolidate the process of post-communist restructuring across much of the former-Soviet bloc.
• EU enlargement has had key implications for the decision-making process within the EU. A large number of member states, and a changed balance between major states and smaller ones, has threatened to make EU decision-making yet more unwieldy and problematic. This has created pressure for a streamlining of the decision-making process, hence the proposal to introduce an EU constitution and, subsequently, the reform proposals encompassed in the Lisbon Treaty. Other implications of EU enlargement include the following. The less developed nature of the economies of accession states has created economic tension within the EU. A wider market creates the prospect of a strengthened EU in economic terms with greater influence on the world stage. EU enlargement has implications for immigration patterns, which have had an impact on both ‘poorer’ and EU ‘wealthier’ states. Immigration from poorer accession states to more prosperous western Eurpoean ones has also been an issue.