May 2004 will be a landmark in the development of a united Europe. By that time, the European Union (EU) will have grown from 15 to 25 members, as states that were long hidden behind the iron curtain finally join the common market.
The commercial links between Eastern and Western Europe are already well established. The first tentative foreign investments in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) were made even before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and by the mid-1990s the trickle had become a flood. The EU is now the accession states’ biggest source of foreign investment and their largest trade partner, accounting for up to 70% of imports. Foreign manufacturers have been lured into the region by the combination of a skilled, but relatively low cost, labour force and generous tax breaks and subsidies.
