20 years after the biggest EU enlargement: what′s left ?

On May 1, 2004, the European Union (#EU) grew from 15 to 25 members as #Poland, the #Czech Republic, #Hungary, #Slovakia, #Slovenia, #Estonia, #Latvia, #Lithuania, #Malta, and #Cyprus joined the EU.

20 years later, this EU #enlargement is largely considered as a success story. This was the nearly unanimous message that German lawmakers conveyed last week at a plenary session of the Deutscher Bundestag commemorating this milestone in European integration. “EU enlargement is an unprecedented success story. The new member states have gained enormous economic power since their accession” recalled Anna Lührmann , Minister of State for Europe Ausw?rtiges Amt (Federal Foreign Office) Germany .

EU's expansion into Central Europe has been a success story – at least - at the macroeconomic level.

In most CEE countries that joined in 2004, their level of GDP per capita is higher by 16 to 19 percent than it would be compared to the alternative scenario of non-membership, tells a recent survey of Erste Group . Citizens are wealthier on average. In Romania and Poland for example, GDP per capita doubled over the last two decades. Nominal wages grew in Central and Eastern Europe at least twice as fast as the EU27 average since 2008.

The economic weight of the CEE countries within the EU grew over time: together they now exceed the size of the #Dutch economy and almost that of #Italy . In a direct comparison with larger Western EU countries, the CE-5 countries (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czechia) or CE-8 respectively (CE-5 plus Baltics) have increased their relative GDP weight of 28-30% Italy's GDP (2000) to almost 80% of Italy's GDP (2024), underlines the economists of Raiffeisen Research . Compared to the #Netherlands, this performance means that the aggregated GDP of the CE region in nominal terms is now significantly larger than this fifth-largest EU economy. Today, the economic strength (GDP) of the CE region stands at 145-160% of that of the Dutch economy (vs 77-80% back in 2000).

At the same time, the labour force of these countries did not “invade” the German labour market.

20 years later, only around 820,000 workers from these ten countries are now employed in Germany (2.4 percent of the German workforce). “Contrary to the fears of many, this has not led to German workers being pushed out of the labor market,” explains Joachim Ragnitz , Managing Director of the Dresden branch of ifo Institute – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research . “People from the Central and Eastern European accession countries are mainly employed in industries and professions that aren’t very attractive to local workers due to low wages or unfavorable working conditions.”

The workers from Central and Eastern Europe did not have alleviate the shortage of skilled labour in Germany (#Fachkr?ftemangel).

In the Bundestag debate, @Zanda Martens https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/zanda-martens-282345246?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs_miniProfile%3AACoAADzrK0IBIhSx-8iKEF1vLkoNOm2xvnV4bIQ&lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_search_srp_all%3BH%2Fq2mQs%2BRAabX3x9jg7pHg%3D%3D gave a moving account of her own life as a child in Latvia, now a Member of the Bundestag. Somehow it resonates with a sentence of former Bundestag′s chairman Wolfgang #Sch?uble while the German parliament was ratifying the enlargement in 2003, quoted by Ms. Lührmann: "The new members of the European Union are not just becoming Europeans now, they always have been."

This is what the Czech writer Milan #Kundera (1929-2023) already explained in his famous essay "A Kidnapped West, The Tragedy of Central Europe" – delivered in Prague in 1967 when he defined Central Europe as a "kidnapped West": "culturally in the West, politically in the East and geographically in the center”.

The German representatives did not only celebrate the achievement of the EU enlargement 20 years ago. “After the enlargement is before the (next) enlargement” mentioned @Ralph Brinkhaus https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/ralph-brinkhaus-b1b189254?miniProfileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs_miniProfile%3AACoAAD6slwcBZOTKOZT8jTB8XgfwztblvYloMu4&lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_search_srp_all%3BTpIjZ%2BXIQGiXn5QF4qYXvg%3D%3D, former chairman of the CDU/CSU Parliamentary Group CDU/CSU Fraktion .

With a view to the next enlargement (“not just #Ukraine, the Republic of #Moldova, #Georgia, but also the Western #Balkans”), he reminded the Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities) and underlined that the European Union is not primarily an economic union and a peace union, but a union of values: “Anyone who shares these values is very welcome in the European Union. Anyone who does not share these values or no longer shares them must consider whether the European Union is the right place for them” said Brinkhaus, mentioning Georgia.

He recalled that certain criteria must be met: “There is no discount, there is no fast track, and it is up to the countries themselves to fulfil or not to fulfil the conditions.” Anton Hofreiter from the Fraktion Bündnis 90/ Die Grünen im Deutschen Bundestag called to learn from the different experiences of the neighbouring countries into our policies, especially for a closer cooperation not only between governments, but also between parliaments.

On her side, Dr. Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann Fraktion der Freien Demokraten , the @ALDE Party lead candidate for the European elections, pointed out that following the aggression of #Russia against Ukraine, “the situation today is a dramatic one” and that the ideal of organising security and peace in Europe together with Russia proved to be a failure. As other representatives, she called for reforms of the EU governance: “We need to increase the EU's ability to act (Handlungsf?higkeit) and speed up decision-making. We also need to address the principle of unanimity”. In the same way, Brinkhaus asked: “Are our institutions really ready to take in new countries? What else do we need to do?”.

The classical dichotomy about enlargement and deepening of the EU integration was mentioned. The debate continues.