The EU Expansion

After years of often tortuous preparations, the European Union is expanding from 15 countries to 25. The new entrants should catch up with its founder members eventually. But they might not want to emulate them too closely.

What was a process (and a long-drawn-out one at that) is now an event. On Saturday May 1st, the enlargement of the European Union from 15 to 25 members will finally take place, with eight former Soviet-bloc countries and two Mediterranean islands joining the club.

The new additions will all be members of equal standing. But it will take several decades more for them to become members of equal means: average GDP per head in the ten new countries is only 46% of the EU-15's. Joining the Union is one thing; economic convergence another. The first, the theory goes, leads to the second. But when the raffish new members of the EU eventually catch up with the old money of Western Europe, they will do so largely through their own efforts—because of what they do for themselves, not what Brussels does for them. It is what EU membership inspires—political stability, economic openness, fiscal rectitude—not what it provides that counts.

Here to read more.