This book is about the subset of eight of the European Union's ten new Member States admitted in the most recent (1 May 2004) enlargement. These are the countries collectively known as the Central Eastern European countries (or CEECs, for short). They comprise: Hungary and Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Poland and the three Baltic countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Shortage of data is one of the reasons for excluding consideration of Cyprus and Malta, the other two countries admitted in the 2004 enlargement.

Earlier enlargements brought with them distinct challenges and opportunities both for the new participants and for the existing members of the Union. The one we are concerned with here is no exception.

In particular, the latest enlargement is unparalleled in terms of the number of countries involved, provoking the need for a change in the governance structure of the European Union (EU). Otherwise the enlargement could be seen as leading to paralysis in decision-making. Secondly, the average level of prosperity and economic development of the new Member States is clearly well below that of the Union average and by a larger margin than had been seen in any previous enlargement. The extent to which the epithet ‘poorer and more rural’ applies to this set of countries can be judged from Table 0.1.

It is easy to see from the table that, with the exception of Slovenia, GDP per head was lower in the CEECs in 2003 than it was in Portugal, the least developed EU-15 member, on this measure.