EU Enlargement: EMU and Agriculture

A significant transformation has taken place in Europe since the late 1980s when the EU was still emerging from its internal difficulties of eurosclerosis and the ‘iron curtain’ was firmly in place across the Continent. However, with the EU pursuing the single internal market programme and monetary union, together with the collapse of Communism both an economic and political transformation swept across Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) which ultimately led to the clamour for EU membership. At the commencement of this process, Redmond (1994) forwarded three reasons regarding the transformation of the EU into the leading economic and political force within Europe. First, the EU’s position as the major player in Europe was firmly established following the resolution of the internal budgetary and agricultural disputes with non-EU countries having to re-evaluate their relationship to ensure market access such that the costs of non-membership were raised to unacceptable levels. Hence, the long-term option to resolve this dilemma became the seeking of EU membership as it appeared the only viable ‘club’ in Europe with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) reduced to a rump of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.