The Impact of EU Membership on Eastern European Member States

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Croatia will join the EU on July 1st 2013. Those that joined in 2004 (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia) saw on the whole stronger GDP growth, lower unemployment and higher FDI inflows. However, Romania and Bulgaria, who joined in 2007, show that membership does not insulate them from the external environment. Croatia is likely to find that in the short-term EU membership will be no panacea, but in the longer term economic gains can be expected.

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