Report highlights benefits of EU enlargement

Ireland has been the largest receiving country by far for nationals from the 2004 EU accession countries relative to its population size, according to a new report published today.

The European's Commission's Five Years of an Enlarged EUstudy reveals that around 5 per cent of Ireland's working-age population comes from the member states which joined the EU in 2004. This compares to just 1 per cent in most other member states.

In 2004, 10 new Central and Eastern European countries joined the European Union, followed three years later by Bulgaria and Romania.

The main EU destination country in absolute terms has been the UK which received almost a third of recent intra-EU movers, followed by Spain (18 per cent) and Ireland (10 per cent).

Mobility flows from the accession countries to the UK and Ireland appear to have peaked in 2006 and have significantly declined in 2007 and even more so in the first three quarters of 2008, according to the report.

However, it has not all been one-way traffic as the study shows that Ireland has the second highest share of citizens living in another EU member state.

The study says the inclusion of the new member state has brought increased levels of economic growth across Europe. The enlarged EU is now the largest integrated economic area in the world, accounting for more than 30 per cent of world GDP and more than 17 per cent of world trade.

Income per capita in accession states has risen from 40 per cent of the old member states' average in 1999 to 52 per cent in 2008. Growth averaged 5.5 per cent between 2004 and 2008, compared to 3.5 per cent in between 1999 and 2003.

The report reveals that this has not been at the expense of old member states, whose growth overall was around 2.2 per cent annually from 2004 to 2008, with a similar figure for 1999 to 2003.

According to the study, enlargement has also increased trade opportunities.

In 2007, almost 80 per cent of exports of the new member states went to the rest of the EU. Old member states also saw their sales to the new members increase to around 7.5 per cent of their total exports in 2007, from just under 5 per cent a decade ago.

"The 2004 and 2007 enlargements were a huge historic step. They put an end to the division of Europe, helped consolidate democracy and brought economic benefits for all EU countries. We should not let the current crisis overshadow this uncontested success. United, we can shape the solution to global issues such as climate change or a new system of international financial governance. Divided we will achieve nothing," said Economic and Monetary Affairs commissioner Joaquín Almunia, this morning.

Unemployment in new member states has declined from often very high levels to levels similar to those in the rest of the EU – around 7 per cent in 2007.