Poland and other European Union new member countries as partners in international competitiveness

The last, so-called eastern enlargement of the European Union is still controversial issue also from the purely economic point of view. However, taking into account respective theory on the long-run it should strengthen the overall international competitiveness of the enlarged Union and there are even first insights supporting such an attitude. Due to many gravitational forces the eight Eastern and Central European new member countries (NMES-8) of the enlarged European Union are on the way of deepening economic integration with their traditional partners upgrading among others trade, capital as well as technology dependence and interdependence. The role of intra-industry complementarity is clearly increasing with all the positive consequences. However, the differentiated intensity of respective restructuring processes between the NMES-8 countries can be observed when taking into account appropriate statistical data and results of various analyses concerning 1999–2005 period. Within the enlarged European Union, Poland—the leader in the early years of systemic transformation—has so far made only relatively limited use of the possibilities for deepening and widening division of labour with other countries of the enlarged European Union. This is due to many reasons, while the relatively slow restructuring in comparison with other new EU member countries as well as some lags with regard to institutional changes seem to be of greatest importance. Therefore there is to learn a lot from other NMES countriesi' experiences.