What will be the impact of EU enlargement on acceding countries ?
It is very clear that there is no better alternative for these countries, however it is also clear that the short-term implications will not necessarily be only positive. There might be an increase of unemployment, an increase in prices, additional fiscal burden. On the other hand the acceding countries will be able to use EU resources for some years. They will be net receivers of EU resources, which will of course be of great importance during this transition period. These resources will help them reconstruct their infrastructure and become more competitive. Even if a lot of foreign direct investments are already in these countries, they expect that their accession to the EU will increase the flow of FDI. At the end of the day it will to my mind be beneficial to acceding countries from the economic point of view but also in political terms and in terms of stability. And for non-acceding countries ? For the non-acceding countries, the UNECE has done some studies that show that EU enlar
