'Expenditure Policies Toward EU Accession' presents the set of public expenditures that could be conducive to rapid growth and convergence among the Central and Eastern European countries. This report assesses public expenditure policy objectives and provides best practice and lessons learned in designing expenditure reforms within these countries. It also highlights ways in which key expenditure programs such as education, environment, and transport can be redirected so as to be more fully supportive of growth objectives.

Throughout, there are two recurring themes. The first is that the EU's prolonged integration process has burdened it with an accreditation of legal texts and a proliferation of instruments whose combined weight threatens its own efficient governance. The second is that, whilst the direct effects of enlargement on transatlantic relations in terms of trade, investment and business activity are likely to be small, of much greater import will be the political outcomes. Of these, none will have more far-reaching consequences than the effect on the development of the Union itself. It is this that will ultimately determine the weight, reliability and compatibility of the power balance across the Atlantic.

European Union Enlargement offers an intense and detailed analysis of the almost ten-year process of preparing and negotiating the accession of Eastern, Southeastern, and Central European countries, as well as Mediterranean countries to the European Union. In the end, ten joined in 2004, with two more to follow in 2007. European Union Enlargement was written by two diplomats who were directly involved in that process. Sajdik and Schwarzinger relate their first-hand experience of proceedings that occurred behind closed doors. They detail how the vision of adding some countries gradually developed into the concrete policy intended to enlarge the European Union. A special chapter explains the Accession Process as well as the Union's strategy that prepared the candidate countries, in legal and economic terms, for membership. The authors describe in detail the complex negotiations that occurred from 1998 to 2002. These include activities of EU member states as well as the European Commission with respect to the candidate countries. They further offer a brief analysis of future possibilities of EU-accession by Balkan nations and Turkey. A number of topical chapters deal with particular key issues involved in the process: free movement of workers, agriculture, financing of the enlargement, transport, and nuclear safety. Other chapters deal with the enclave of Kaliningrad as well as the Stability and Association Pact for South East Europe. In addition to providing key information about the process, this volume is also a case study of European policies and diplomatic practice. The enlargement negotiations from 1998 to 2002 were the most complex ones the European Union had ever conducted. In consequence, this work gives insight into the working methods of both the institutions in Brussels and of the representatives of the member states that made them a success. It will be of interest to those concerned with European politics, international organizations, and area studies.

Recoge: 1. Introduction - 2. Empirical strategy and data - 3. Panel unit root tests and cointegration analysis - 4. Heterogeneous panel ECM estimation - 5. Robustness analysis - 6. Implications for policy - 7. Concluding remarks.

Contents: Marian Noga: Objectives of the European Union in the Light of the Lisbon Agenda - Gustav Dieckheuer/Marcel Mlakar/Ute Stemmann: Trade Creation and Trade Diversion by EU Enlargement with Special Reference to Poland - Boguslaw Fiedor/Andrzej Matysiak: Globalization and Integration of the World Economy and Eastward Enlargement of the European Union - Maria Piotrowska: Poland's Accession to the EU in the Macroeconomic Perspective - Eric Ringhut/Philipp Gerlach: Poland's Way to EMU - Prospects, Risks and Chances - Thomas Apolte: Social Policy and Income Redistribution between Harmonization and Competition in an Enlarged European Union - Jerzy Rymarczyk: Poland's Adjustment to the European Union Foreign Economic Policy - Irena Kociszewska/Karol Kociszewski: The Economic Conditions of the Polish Agriculture Ecologization in the Light of Adjustments towards EU-Membership - Bozena Baborska/Mikolaj Klimczak/Michal Narozny: Issues of Arable Land Acquisition by Foreigners and the Implementation of Common Agricultural Policy in Poland in the Course of Accession Negotiations - Franciszek Adamczuk/Jan Rymarczyk: Local Aspects of European Integration on the Example of Zgorzelec / Gorlitz Cross-Border Co Operation - Franciszek Adamczuk/Jan Rymarczyk: Transborder Cooperation in Europe based on the Example of Poland and Germany - Andrzej Graczyk/Zbigniew Jakubczyk Development of the Electrical Energy Market in Poland in Terms of European Integration - Eric C. Meyer: Decision Power in the European Council - The Impact of EU Enlargement - Aloys Prinz: The Value Added Tax (VAT) in the European Union: Concept, Development and some Problems.

"Prime Minister Blair often claims that 60 percent of the UK's trade and three million job 'depend on' EU membership. In fact, 48 percent of UK exports of goods and services go to the EU. Moreover, nearly 80 percent of our economy is the result of domestic activity, involving buying from and selling to each other. The export of goods and services to the rest of the world account for another 11 percent, and only ten percent is the result of exporting to the EU. In any event, the jobs currently resulting from trade with the EU would not be lost if we left. A number of authoritative studies have found that leaving the EU would have little impact on employment. The balance of the costs and benefits of UK membership of the EU is unequivocally negative. The net costs are substantial. The current recurring annual direct net cost to the UK of EU membership is estimated to range between approximately three and five percent of the GDP, with a 'most likely' figure of four percent of the GDP, equivalent to 40 billion per year. Within the 'most likely' 40 billion, 20 billion is the direct net cost of EU regulation to the UK economy - annually. A further 15 billion is the direct net cost to the UK economy of the Common Agricultural Policy. Another 5 billion is the annual cash subsidy that the UK pays to 'Brussels' through the EU budget. The current heavy burden of direct net economic cost - four percent of GDP - will not get lighter in the future. At best it will get no worse. The gloomy prognosis for the future is due partly to measures already in the EU pipeline, starting with the EU Constitution and enlargement, and partly to the UK being locked into a regional bloc in marked long-term decline. On a global view, the EU model of conducting trade, via a tightly-regulated customs union, is outmoded. The world outside the EU, with a superior trading and economic performance, tends to choose interlocking networks of user-friendly free trade agreements. These deliver the same benefits that EU members derive from the single market, but with very few of the costs."

Successful eastward enlargement of the EU will be critical to ensuring stability and prosperity for post-Cold War Europe. But enlargement raises difficult issues for the EU and the applicant countries of central and eastern Europe. Is the EU capable of reforming its institutions and policies to cope with 25 or more members? Which central and east Europeans will join, and when? How can we ensure that enlargement brings the economic and security benefits expected of it?This comprehensive study examines in detail the political, economic and security implications of eastward enlargement for both East and West. The authors present new analyses of the policy issues including the EU budget and pre-accession strategy and of the economic integration likely before and after accession.Based on an extensive series of interviews with key ministers, diplomats, policy-makers, academics and journalists across Europe, this study also provides an informed overview of expectations and attitudes towards enlargement within the EU and in the applicant countries.