The aim of the particular speech was to view the prospects, opportunities and challenges of enlargement. It is expected to be seen one of the major enlargements in the European Union’s history within the next 3 months.

The Commissioner believes that “the most important opportunities flowing from enlargement do not lie in the trade area, but rather in the possibilities for companies in current and new Member States to re-organise themselves and their processes. By taking advantage of the diversities and skills of the enlarged Union, companies will be able to strengthen their competitiveness”.

On the other hand, there have appeared to be great difficulties regarding the economic development of most of the Accession countries, excluding Hungary’s and Latvia’s enormous increase in labour productivity, of 50% and 33% respectively.

So far productivity grows unevenly across these countries and in different sectors; positive ones constitute electrical, optical, transport and furniture sectors, whereas food, beverages and tobacco, textiles, leather, wood products and chemicals remain unchallenged.

“Production is shifting towards more sophisticated sectors” in more advanced Accession countries, such as Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary and Slovakia, with regards to technology-driven industries. Thus, countries that have the tendency to remain stuck in more traditional sectors subsequently do not catch up as quickly as those who specialise in technological sectors.

Conversely, there is a need for innovation and a valuing of local technological inputs and skills in order to maximize win-win situations.

An active and quite important role for economic development and convergence in the enlarged Europe, play research and innovation policy, as many innovations are directly based on research, such as biotechnology.

This involves the EU's Framework Programmes for Research which gives a great opportunity to many candidates from different countries to build research partnerships with companies from the new Member States and thus “to strengthen their technology base and enhance their contribution to European competitiveness”.

Nevertheless, “not all innovation is research based. Applying an existing technology in a new context and for new purposes can be as challenging as entering a totally new technological field”.  Some analyses show indeed the reason of the difference between EU and US with respect to productivity and lays on the weakness in organizational innovation “in the work environment, development of new skills, and organisational change in general”.

Further Information

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