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Update Materials
Update 3 (March 2005):
Welcome to the Club:
The EU's new member states in Central and Eastern Europe
Elections to the European Parliament in June 2004 suggested that any excitement about joining the EU among the peoples of its newest member states had paled pretty quickly.
Turnout,
which was low in the states belonging to the EU-15, was even lower in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE): only in Estonia and Latvia did it reach the EU average of 45%, while in the Czech Republic, for instance, it was 28% and in Poland just 21%.
Fears that this meant trouble ahead, however, seem not to have been realised. Rather than the reality of membership proving a big disappointment, it would appear that many people in the new member states had expectations so low that they were unlikely to be dashed or fears so exaggerated that they were unlikely to be realised. Doubtless, the impressive growth rates in most of the new member states - whose low labour costs and taxes, some allege, allow them to 'steal' jobs from the rest of the EU - have helped.
On the other hand, there is little sign as yet that they are overwhelmingly supportive of membership or convinced that it benefits their country. Indeed, while it would be wrong to think that the
Eurobarometer survey
carried out right at the end of 2004 showed the majority of the CEE member states had joined the ranks of the 'Eurosceptic' countries like the UK, Sweden, Austria, and Finland, support for membership in half of them was lower than the 56% EU average. On the other hand, substantial minorities feel that membership is 'neither a good nor bad thing', and in only three of the CEE new members (the Czech Republic, Hungary and Latvia) did the percentage thinking the country had not benefited from membership rise above the EU average of 36%. More to the point, perhaps, in no CEE country does the percentage of those thinking membership is 'a bad thing rise' above 14%, which is about the average for the EU.
It therefore seems unlikely that it will be any of the CEE countries that scupper the EU's Constitutional Treaty: two of them (Hungary and Lithuania) were the first to ratify it, and the betting is that it will be passed by referendums to be held in the Czech Republic and Poland in 2005 or early 2006.
