How will EMU affect the EUs planned enlargement?
Since the late 1980’s some governments such as Britain’s, have favored concentrating on “widening” the EU to include new members states, while others, especially France and Germany, argued for “deepening” the current EU institutional structure and delaying enlargement to the east. At the Maastricht summit in 1991, Germany essentially consented to the French goal of emphasizing deepening the EU through monetary union in exchange for France’s acceptance of a unified Germany. The principal current obstacles to enlargement concern reforms of the EU’s institutions and budget, especially reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and structural aid or assistance to poorer regions within existing EU states. While most member states and EU citizens favor enlargement in principal, no country wishes to increase its EU budget payments, so payments to farmers and poorer regions within existing EU members would have to be decreased in order to admit the new members. With respect to the CAP, a c
