(123) Although calls for further European integration still often originated in Berlin and Paris, with many more members and divergent sets of interests, agreements were not always as straightforward as the two old partners would have liked. The European Union did not stop at fifteen, however. With the end of communism, nearly all former Soviet satellite states decided that their economic and political futures were linked to a closer integration within the European Union. Between March 1994 (Hungary) and January 1996 (the Czech Republic), ten Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) submitted their applications to Brussels. The two noncommunist states of Cyprus and Malta had already done so in July 1990. Obviously integrating such a large number of countries imposed severe challenges. First, the number of EU citizens would increase by 32 percent to 485 million. Second, the level of economic development in the CEEC was sharply below that of Western Europe. In fact, upon accession in 2004, the absolute GDP of the EU grew by only 8 percent.
Posted on: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 03:28:27 +0000
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