The Political Millennium Event: EU Enlargement as an Economic Challenge

After the successful launch of the euro, EU enlargement is the next big challenge for the European Union. It will not only be a historic event that ends the postwar political separation of Europe, but will also have far-reaching economic implications. The eastward enlargement of the EU will be the fifth enlargement since the European Community was established in 1957. The first, conducted in 1973, was labelled the ‘northern enlargement’ (Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom). The second (Greece in 1981) and third (Portugal and Spain in 1986) were called ‘southern enlargements’. The fourth enlargement (Austria, Finland and Sweden in 1995) required no special label as the new members switched from EFTA to the EU. Due to the increasing attraction of the EU, the formerly competing integration bodies in Europe turned into a nearly monolithic EU bloc of 15 member states and a remaining mini-EFTA with four members (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland), and even the latter are strongly integrated into the EU Single Market via the European Economic Area (EEA) agreements of 1994 (with the exception of Switzerland). These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.