EU Enlargement and Theories of Economic Integration

Abstract

The fifth wave of European Union (EU) enlargement that took place in 2004 and 2007 was the culmination of a long process that began in 1989. Early on the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) began requesting membership, taking the then European Community (EC) by surprise. Criteria for accession were drawn up only in the 1990s, and gradually empirical studies of the likely effects of enlargement began to emerge. The theoretical basis for analysis of the enlargement process was heterogeneous and piecemeal, and it is difficult to talk of ‘enlargement theory’. Nonetheless, the aim of this chapter is to indicate the main theoretical approaches used to study the fifth wave of enlargement.¹ The focus on 2004 and 2007 is justified not only by the scale of the enlargement and the amount of analysis that it attracted, but also because the theory used to analyse earlier enlargements is often difficult to distinguish from more general integration theory.