International Economics International Economics
Enlargement and Deepening of EU
The original six members established the European Community in 1957: West Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg. The main reason behind this unification was a specific response to a series of problems, which confronted a group of countries in Western Europe in the immediate aftermaths of 1945. Unification offered Western Europe a means of strengthening itself against both super powers united states and USSR. Stanley (p.30) argued that "the main motivation for European Community integration...is the argument of scale, or put more bluntly, the attraction of sizeism" In 1945 it was easy to relate size with success, Europe's political failure could be attributed to smallness, which military victory against Germany could be accredited to the sheer size of the new super powers. "Economic studies of the advantages of scale, were simply taken as proven" Stanley (page ). From this we can understand that the development of the European Union is seen mainly in terms of enlarging and deepening, as we have seen the development in the last 45 years of the EU from six countries to fifteen, and from a Common Market Zone to a single market zone.
Election results since 1979
Political composition of the 7th parliament
Enlargement of the European Union (animation) Euro...Enlargement is the process by which countries join the European Union. Article 49 of the Maastricht treaty specifies, "Any European State... may apply to become a member of the Union..." Timothy (p.148) Table 2.1 in Appendix A will show you the different stages of the enlargement process from application to accession.
On balance, enlargement should be economically beneficial for the Union because "...it is likely to lead to better performances (economies of scale, higher growth and investment, more technological innovation, stronger global corporate players)" Avery & Cameron, 1999, (p.141) not only that but the addition of more than 100 million people,