Before the latest EU enlargement substantial changes in the integration process were predicted as a result of the accession of 10 new member states, with some forecasting cataclysmic consequences. This book, the first ex post assessment of EU enlargement, provides evidence to the contrary, while also providing examples in which the new members have been able to influence the EU policy output with their liberal attitudes on economic and social policy.

This book explores the policy implications of growing pressures for economic adjustment in the agricultural sectors of developed countries. The primary focus is on Europe and North America, but adjustment policies in other developed countries are discussed. Some chapters are based on an international workshop at Imperial College, London in October 2003 and an international symposium in Philadelphia in the spring of 2004.

The main theme of this book is the adaptation process of the new EU member states from Central-Eastern Europe (Hungary and Poland) to the multi-level system of governance in public policy, particularly in the regional and environmental policy areas. The work conceptualizes policy learning and institutional and policy adaptation within the EU system of governance and draws lessons from the experience of previous waves of enlargement-cohesion-countries (Ireland, Portugal and Greece). In doing so, the book makes an important contribution to the literature on the transformation of domestic policy-making structures, as a result of the increasing Europeanization of public policy, as well as on the conceptual tools, explanatory variables and mechanisms determining this process.

This book explores the adaptation of the constitutions of Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) for membership in the European Union.

Enlargement has been an almost constant part of European integration history – going from an improvised exercise to the EU’s most developed foreign policy tool. However, neither the longevity nor the complexity of enlargement has been properly historicised. European Enlargement across Rounds and Beyond Borders offers three interdisciplinary, innovative, and indeed radical, new ways of understanding and analysing EC/EU enlargements: first, tracing Longue Durée developments; second, investigating enlargement Beyond the Road to Membership; and third, exploring the Entangled Exchanges and synergies between the EC/EU and its outside. This edited volume will provide fresh perspectives on enlargement as one of the defining processes in Europe in the second half of the 20th century: How are we to understand enlargement as a policy? How has it changed the EU? What is the historical role of the British press in shaping the UK’s visions of Europe? How has enlargement played into Russia’s relationship with today’s EU? Giving answers to these questions, and many more, this volume wishes to spark a broad debate about the roots, range, and repercussions of enlargement, and how historians, and other scholars, should engage with it. This publication will be of key interest to scholars and students of modern European history and politics, the European integration process, EU studies, and more broadly multilateral international institutions, history, law and the social sciences.

As the role of the multinational enterprise (MNE) in the economic development of countries grows, a focus on how MNEs influence the process of regulatory and legislative structures has developed among scholars of international political economy. Yusaf H. Akbar draws a conceptual link between the market strategies of MNEs and the convergence of regulatory systems internationally. Focusing on empirical evidence from Central Europe and industry-specific case studies, Akbar uses the example of the successful implementation of EU laws in Hungary as it bids to join the European Union to demonstrate the profound impact of MNE strategies.

Accession of the Central and Eastern European Countries is one of the biggest political projects for the European Union. As in all previous enlargements the agricultural chapter proves to be one of the most sensitive fields of the negotiations. This book examines the effects of enlargement on agricultural markets and government expenditure in the candidate countries as well as possible effects of different choices in the politically sensitive areas of direct payments and production quotas. The ten candidate countries have quite diverse economic and agricultural characteristics. Membership in the European Union, therefore, leads to varying macroeconomic effects. Two chapters specifically deal with these aspects and their effects on agriculture as well as likely country-specific developments in Hungary and in Slovenia. The quantitative tools developed and used for this analysis have also been more widely used by governments and institutions in analyses of questions related to enlargement. The book describes and documents these quantitative tools. Contents: Agricultural Markets in Central and Eastern Europe - The CAP of 1992 - The Agenda 2000 policies - Quotas and direct payments - Land retirement - Welfare effects for producers and consumers.

Following some ten years as a practicing lawyer and consultant, Kirstyn Inglis has been researching the evolving legal practice of EU enlargement for over ten years. This book, succinctly, introduces this evolving practice, covering ‘transitional arrangements’ in accession treaties, the Treaty of Lisbon, recent European Court case law, the specific governance challenge of incorporating Bulgaria and Romania and the strategy for future enlargements to bring in the Western Balkans and Turkey. In part two, the examples of the environment and the agri-food acquis are explored, including the analysis of the transitional arrangements in practice. Overall, the diversity and complexity of the pre-accession and post-accession challenge of enlargement becomes apparent, as do key challenges for the evolution of the acquis communautaire in an enlarging Union at a time when Croatia is waiting to sign its own accession treaty.

In light of the elimination of import restrictions under the WTO at the end of 2004, this book identifies the most recent market developments throughout the entire supply chain and outlines the policy and regulatory challenges that are arising.