Proceedings of the 18th International Academic Conference, London

THE VISEGRAD COUNTRIES AND EUROPEAN UNION MEMBERSHIP - SELECTED ISSUES

IWONA PAWLAS

Abstract:

The Visegrad Group consists of four Central European states: Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. They started the accession procedure in mid 1990s and joined the European Union in May 2004. The aim of the paper is to analyse the economic, social and political impact of European Union membership on Visegrad countries. Key advantages resulting from the accession to the European Union were presented, including positive net position towards EU budget, participation in EU Policy of Economic, Social and Territorial Cohesion and Common Agricultural Policy, as well as export opportunities and increase in GDP per capita. In addition to that population trends, situation on the market of labour and net migration in four Visegrad countries were studied.

Keywords: Visegrad Group; European Union; regional economic integration

DOI: 10.20472/IAC.2015.018.098

PDF: Download