Enlargement of EU

Chris Burford cburford at gn.apc.org
Mon Oct 18 15:40:35 PDT 1999


That week the European Union announced that it intended to open discussions about membership with the south-eastern group of European countries: Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, together with Lithuania and Latvia.

This is to add to the discussions already taking place with the central eastern countries: Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, together with Estonia.

Plus Malta was added to Cyprus.

In terms of the map this broadly envisages an extension of the EU sphere of influence to the borders of the old Soviet Union, with the exception of Albania and the countries of the former Yugoslavia.


>From one point of view this is an extension of imperialism and the new
arrivals will be in a subordinate position perhaps not granted the full rights of membership for some time.


>From another point of view it is an extension of the tendency of monopoly
capitalism to larger markets. I think both aspects have an element of truth.

The former Yugoslavia would need a very robust model of socialism, to be able to defy these pressures for assimilation into the larger European supermarket.

Chris Buford

London



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