Entangling fortunes: The European Union, central and eastern Europe and the eastern enlargement.

摘要

This study of the political economy of regional integration between the European Union (EU) and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEEC's) addresses two broad areas of current theoretical debate: (1) economic models appropriate to understanding the consequences of regional integration; and (2) the political economy of regional integration. This study demonstrates that economic models incorporating increasing returns and differential rates of productivity across countries and sectors are important when considering the consequences of integration between high and low wage regions. The findings suggest that the interests of economic actors—in particular trade unions and employer organizations, but also workers and investors—are incorrectly or poorly predicted by conventional approaches emphasizing the Heckscher Ohlin model of international trade and its Stolper Samuelson variant. While this model predicts advantages for low-skilled labor in less developed countries, this study comes to the opposite conclusion that both low-skilled labor and firms with comparatively low levels of productivity in the CEEC's have reason to be hesitant about regional integration.; Econometric evidence is provided to illustrate that increasing returns and differential rates of productivity play a role in determining the consequences of economic integration. Survey evidence is presented to show that the preferences of labor and employers in the CEEC's reflect competitiveness concerns. Labor and employer organizations in the more advanced EU Member States, on the other hand, are bent on minimizing the perceived impact of enlargement. The policies adopted by the EU tend to reflect the concerns of the Western labor and employer organizations, indirectly highlighting the institutional imbalance created by a decision-making process that gives less weight to the interests of the governments and interest organizations of the less developed applicant states. This study concludes market integration alone is not sufficient to promote greater economic development and growth in Central and Eastern Europe. Industrial policy and the EU's redistributive mechanisms—in particular the structural and cohesion funds—are presumably the most significant tools for promoting both economic growth and political cohesion across the future Member States of the New Europe.