Die nächste Runde der EU-Erweiterung: Balkanländer und ökonomische Beitrittskriterien
The Next Round of EU-Enlargement : The Balkan Countries and Economic Accession

Summary/Abstract: The Thessaloniki Summit of June 2003 reconfirmed the European perspective for the Western Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) as potential EU candidates. 2007 is the indicative date for the accession of Bulgaria and Romania. The paper quantifies the economic part of the Copenhagen accession criteria and applies them to the countries in order to assess the readiness of each country for joining the EU. Two additional criteria – governance and social capital, which are not explicitly included in the Copenhagen criteria – are used in the country assessments. Our ranking shows that Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania should be able to fulfil the economic criteria until 2007. In comparison, the remaining four Western Balkan countries still have a long way to go. Finally, appropriate strategies to bring these countries closer to European standards are discussed.

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