Natalia MOROIANU-DUMITRESCU (natalia.moroianu@csie.ase.ro)
PhD student, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania
Anca NOVAC
PhD, Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania
Abstract
Ten of the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) have gone through a dramatic process of economic restructuring in which the European Union (EU) Trade Agreements have played a major role. The 5th Enlargement of the EU generated the biggest ever common market, but up to now there still persist two regional intra-EU markets. Considering the 12 new member states accessing EU in the 5th Enlargement, we analyse the growth and changes of the most important trade indicators segregated for goods and services during the period 2000-2017 and whether they account for trade integration. The results show that in 2017 all the 12 newcomers have gained higher import shares on both goods and services at the intra-EU level, meaning a win for the old EU members. On the other side, 9 out of 14 of the old EU members show a significant increase of the goods import global share in trading with the aggregate regional market of the 12 newcomers, meaning a great win for the later in taking over Western market shares. Meantime, our results confirm that trade integration is successfully continuing and powering all the EU members to further develop.
Key words: integration, trade flows, CEEC, EU-15, EU-Enlargement.
JEL: F14, O11, O24
