All of them would be forced to encumber their fragile economies with
tens of thousands of pages of prohibitively costly labor, intellectual
property rights, financial, and environmental regulation. None stands
to enjoy the same benefits as do the more veteran members - notably in
agricultural and regional development funds.
Joining the EU would deliver rude economic and political shocks to the
candidate countries. A brutal and rather sudden introduction of
competition in hitherto much-sheltered sectors of the economy, giving
up recently hard-won sovereignty, shouldering the debilitating cost of
the implementation of reams of guideline, statutes, laws, decrees, and
directives, and being largely powerless to influence policy outcomes.
Faced with such a predicament, some countries may even reconsider.
Switching Empires
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
Also published by United Press International (UPI)
European Union (EU) leaders, meeting in Copenhagen, are poised to sign
an agreement to admit ten new members to their hitherto exclusive club.
Eight of the fortunate acceders are former communist countries: Czech
Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and
Slovenia. Bulgaria and Romania are tentatively slated to join in 2007.
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