Publication: Reshaping Economic Geography : Implications for New EU Member States
Date
2009-04
ISSN
Published
2009-04
Author(s)
Abstract
The ongoing crisis should spur deeper
European integration, rather than a return to the
nationalism of the past. The World Development Report 2009,
reshaping economic geography, spotlights several issues for
new European Union (EU) member states. From 1950 to 1990,
Eastern Europe was impermeable to the flow of goods,
services and ideas from the West, and grew slowly. During
the same period, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in
fourteen Western European economies grew at three times the
pace of Eastern Europe. The drivers of West European growth
were market economies, regional cooperation, and global
economic integration. The European Economic Community,
started by six Western European nations in 1957, continued
to increase its membership with the ultimate aim of full
economic and monetary integration. After the collapse of the
former Soviet Union in 1991, the EU10 countries, along with
Malta and Cyprus, joined the expanded European Union, an
economic zone based on the principles of democracy, markets
and the free mobility of goods, capital and labor. The
27country European Union has a combined population of almost
500 million people and accounts for over 30 percent of the
world's GDP. But the legacy of division has meant that
the EU10 countries lag considerably behind most of the other
member states. While the EU10 have brought 123 million
people into the European Union, they have reduced its
average level of GDP per capita by an estimated 15.6 percent.
Citation
“Gill, Indermit; Goh, Chor-ching; Roberts, Mark. 2009. Reshaping Economic Geography : Implications for New EU Member States. Europe and Central Asia Knowledge Brief; Volume No. 4. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/27b70683-ed04-5c95-b2b9-2f84d08232c3 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”