This paper examines the state of innovation in Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern EU countries. Despite increased innovation capacity, the region faces significant challenges threatening its growth and competitiveness, including severe skills shortages, uneven productivity, and barriers to...

This study examines the implications of future enlargements for the next MFF. It reviews adjustments made to the EU budget during past enlargements and estimates the budgetary costs of the accession of all current candidate and potential candidate countries (excluding Türkiye) under three...

This study explores the role and enhancement of parliamentary capacities in the European Union (EU) enlargement process, focusing on the EU's evolving accession methodology and its emphasis on the 'fundamentals' approach. It examines the European Commission's criteria for 'functioning democratic...

This study examines the implications of future enlargements for the next MFF. It reviews adjustments made to the EU budget during past enlargements and estimates the budgetary costs of the accession of all current candidate and potential candidate countries (excluding Türkiye) under three...

EU enlargement has stalled since the last member joined over ten years ago, marking the longest period without expansion since 1973. This elapsed time contrasts with the potential income gains membership promises. Drawing on the biggest EU enlargement in 2004 and employing a synthetic...

Twenty years have passed since the first eastern enlargements of the European Union (EU). This paper assesses the impacts of EU accession on agriculture and rural regions of Central and Eastern European countries and identifies the reasons behind differences in country performance. Results...

The enlargement of the European Union towards the Western Balkans is experiencing unprecedented dynamism, supported by the launch of a tailored Euro 6 billion growth plan. This renewed momentum offers an important opportunity for the Western Balkans to accelerate economic convergence with the...

In this study, we contribute to the literature about the effects of improving access to citizenship on integration outcomes. Hereby, we exploit exogenous variation from two citizenship reforms in Germany to estimate the effects of residency requirements on perceived discrimination, which is...

The changing geopolitical situation in the European region has actualized the issues of further EU enlargement. As a result, the relevance of studying many aspects of the functioning economic systems of candidate countries has increased. In this context, the purpose of this article is to...

EU enlargement rounds have always been driven by political will of the parties concerned and administered through a comprehensive legal-bureaucratic procedure. There is strong political determination to carry on the accession process involving Western Balkan countries as well as Ukraine, Georgia...

Understanding the structural change in catching-up regions and the spatial distribution of economic sectors is essential for designing comprehensive policy strategies to promote balanced economic development. This study examines the economic restructuring of the 11 central and eastern European...

The objective of the article is to determine the prospects for the development of BLER (board-level employee representation) in the new EU countries. To achieve this goal, a critical analysis of the literature on the subject and relevant legal regulations was used. In the old countries of the...

This paper examines how trade liberalization-induced labor demand shocks affect wages and non-wage working conditions. Using exogenous trade shocks from EU enlargement and worker-level data, we find that export liberalization increases temporary contracts and atypical work schedules,...

How does dismantling deep integration affect international trade? This paper provides new evidence on the consequences of disintegration by estimating the impact of Brexit on goods trade by UK firms. The UK’s exit from the EU’s single market and customs union in January 2021 led to an...

Empirical models of trade agreements implicitly assume that withdrawal from a trade agreement has an equal and opposite trade effect as accession, i.e., symmetry. With increasing opposition to international economic cooperation, it becomes urgent to test this assumption. We analyze a...

This paper studies the role of dataset choices for trade policy estimates in structural gravity models. Using twelve publicly available data sources and applying alternative and commonly used dataset restrictions, we obtain 586 estimates for the EU membership trade effects from a standard...

This paper studies the role of dataset choices for trade policy estimates in structural gravity models. Using twelve publicly available data sources and applying alternative and commonly used dataset restrictions, we obtain 586 estimates for the EU membership trade effects from a standard...

The Treaty on the Functioning of the EU promotes not only a common market but also economic, social and territorial cohesion and access to public services, including cross-border regions. Despite the objective of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU to promote, inter alia, cohesion in...

We employ Synthetic Control Method techniques to estimate the causal effect of Brexit on the consumer price index (CPI) in the United Kingdom. We construct a counterfactual CPI index from a weighted pool of comparable economies and find that the price level of the United Kingdom rose...

Western Balkan countries aim to intensify their path toward the European Union as an opportunity to ensure peace, economic growth, and institutional sustainability. Apart from the regional challenges, the EU integration process of the WB is affected by different geopolitical challenges, such as...

Twenty years have passed since the largest enlargement of the European Union in history. During the eastern enlargement, 10 new member states entered the union, seven of which belonged to the former Eastern bloc. The new members have since experienced astonishing growth rates, closing the large...

Twenty years after the EU accession of the Visegrád countries-- Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary - we analyse their development of unit labour costs and of the labour share in manufacturing for the years 1995 to 2023. Firstly, the labour shares in the Visegrád countries have...

The twenty years since the Eastern Enlargement of the EU in 2004 have generally borne out the hopes that at the time were placed in what was seen as the reunification of the continent. Economic performance in the new member states have steadily converged with those in the EU15. The substantial...

The study explores how enlargement would affect the Cohesion Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy areas with a deep impact on local and regional authorities, as well as the allocation of European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) at regional and local level. Taking into account three...

'Who is Who' is a mapping project of various stakeholders and their roles in asylum and reception systems at the European, national and local levels. They key actors and their roles are presented as defined in national policies and legislation and implemented in practice. The different...

ECDC is helping countries in the Western Balkans and Türkiye to improve their infectious disease prevention and control systems and public health workforce to prepare them for their future participation in ECDC's work. Technical cooperation with Western Balkans and Türkiye aims to improve...

In December 1984, an agreement between the European Commission and the European University Institute laid the foundation for what would become the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU). The HAEU has since become the EU institutions' official archival centre for the preservation and...

In December 1984, an agreement between the European Commission and the European University Institute laid the foundation for what would become the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU). The HAEU has since become the EU institutions' official archival centre for the preservation and...

The European Charter for Access to Research Infrastructures sets out non-regulatory principles and guidelines to be used as a reference when defining Access policies for Research Infrastructures and related services. While not having any legally binding nature, Research Infrastructures are...

In this Institutional Paper the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs brings together into a single document the economic chapters of the European Commission's country reports for the ten enlargement countries Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, North Macedonia, Kosovo,...