Schreyer, Michaele --- "The financial aspects of enlargement: some remarks" [2003] ELECD 108; in Tumpel-Gugerell, Gertrude; Mooslechner, Peter (eds), "Structural Challenges for Europe" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2003)

Book Title: Structural Challenges for Europe

Editor(s): Tumpel-Gugerell, Gertrude; Mooslechner, Peter

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781843764748

Section: Chapter 8

Section Title: The financial aspects of enlargement: some remarks

Author(s): Schreyer, Michaele

Number of pages: 6

Extract:

8. The financial aspects of
enlargement: some remarks
Michaele Schreyer

The EU is now on the eve of enlargement. In October 2002 the heads of
state and government of the member states confirmed at the European
Council Meeting in Brussels that the candidate countries Cyprus, the Czech
Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, the Slovak
Republic and Slovenia can join the European Union in 2004. They con-
firmed that these states meet the political and economic criteria for joining
and that they will be able to take over all obligations linked to membership
by 2004.
For Bulgaria and Romania progress was welcomed and the European
Council confirmed that the Union would support the countries in their
efforts to reach their target date of 2007 for accession. The summit also
underlined the progress of reforms in Turkey.
Now the final negotiations have started ­ those on the financial aspects
of enlargement ­ and these relate to:

how much funding the EU will offer to the new members
what they have to contribute, and
what the cost will be for the EU-15.

Before I go further, let me reflect a little on what exactly is meant by `costs
of enlargement'. In the public debate this notion of `costs' is often nebu-
lous: very often, the forthcoming enlargement is associated with large,
quasi-automatic and unpredictable money flows from the old to the new
member states, from rich to poor regions. When recently Europeans in all
of the present member states were interviewed ...