New EU member states bring more benefits than costs, says new report

New member states benefit the EU significantly, a new report has shown.

The report “The economic benefits of EU-13 EU-membership” shows that most countries gain strongly from the new accessions, the biggest beneficiaries being Germany and Luxembourg, followed by Belgium, Denmark, Austria, the United Kingdom, and Sweden.

Commissioned by Poland, the report argues southern European countries benefit from the new accessions to a much smaller extent, with weak trading ties and low migration between the new member states and the South.

However, the report found that the Netherlands benefits more from imports than exports to the EU-13 states, France's main benefit is bilateral trade, and Finland's migration and trade.

The report also surveys the "new" EU members' contributions to the EU, and shows that the pre-2004 EU members would see a significant decrease in welfare if the post-2004 accessions were not a part of the Community.

The report says that "old" EU countries trade three times more with new members today than before the 2004 accessions.

You can hear the podcast about the report here.