The financial implications of EU enlargement and policy reforms

On 18 April 2002, Notre Europe and The European Policy Centre brought together around twenty experts in Brussels to try to take stock of the state of knowledge on the budgetary prospects of an enlarged Union.

Although rich and detailed, the debate was obviously inconclusive, and the departure of its organisers led us to postpone publication of the report. The agreements reached in Brussels and then in Copenhagen at the end of 2002 significantly renewed this budgetary issue and risked rendering the material from the April seminar obsolete.

Marjorie Jouen agreed to take up these materials and update them in the light of the conclusions of the Brussels and Copenhagen European Councils. She concludes that, in a context now shaken by the conclusion of negotiations with ten candidate countries, changes in the budgetary context are creating the conditions for what she calls a big bang. While this conclusion is in no way binding on the other seminar participants, it is sufficiently well argued to be of interest to readers of Notre Europe’s work.

It is in this spirit that we are publishing this reflection today, together with Lluis Navarro’s introductory note to the seminar, to which it refers.