What Has the European Union Ever Done for Us?

Twenty years after the EU’s Eastern enlargement—and in anticipation of a new wave of integration—the key question remains: to what extent has European integration facilitated or hindered economic development and the consolidation of democratic institutions in the new member states? This chapter contends that the impact is mixed. Although the EU has broadened opportunities for economic development, it has also fostered new forms of economic dependency and contributed, both directly and indirectly, to the erosion of democratic institutions and values in several Eastern member states. From an economic perspective, all new member states have benefited from EU accession, albeit to varying degrees; in the absence of integration, growth and incomes would have been lower. While the EU’s post-2004 regulatory framework promotes export-led development—thereby reinforcing the typical economic model of the Eastern member states—it simultaneously sustains rather than mitigates the dependency relations between the EU’s developed core and its semi-periphery. Consequently, the governance of the EU’s internal market contributes to economic nationalism and the weakening of democratic values and institutions in many member states.