The implications of widening for third countries*

Because the European Union (EU) has sought from its earliest history to accommodate nonmember countries through various preferential arrangements, the further expansion toward the eastern part of Europe is bound to affect the benefits that partners in these preferential arrangements can count on. The effects of entering transition economies (TEs) can be direct, as a result of the TE obtaining access to the four freedoms of the EU. But they can also be indirect, resulting from the way enlargement alters the calculus of EU benefits and costs for present EU members. This paper examines the various preferential arrangements and the major effects that are likely to be experienced by them as a result of the eastward extension of the EU. Given the EU's foreign-policy objectives and the sizable changes that have occurred in Europe, the paper argues that it might now be the appropriate occasion to reexamine those preferential arrangements. The article pays special attention to the ramification of eastward expansion on TEs that will not now or ever qualify for EU membership, yet remain of strategic concern to the EU.