L'ampliació de la Unió Europea

With the accession of ten new countries on May 1, 2004, the European Union completed its largest ever extension. With the current 25 members, the EU is consolidated as one of the biggest markets in the world and, as is logical, this new reality entails political and economic upheavals. The author shows how this process has aroused an incipient fear among EU partners in Latin America due to this greater interest shown in the Eastern European countries. Countries whose economy is based on agriculture and livestock, such as Argentina, fear that the new agrarian markets (particularly Poland) may affect their trade dealings with the EU. Nevertheless, for the moment, events have allayed these fears. Be that as it may, the author feels that it is imperative that the traditional relations between European and Latin America continue to be strengthened, based on a certain scale of shared values, as the only way to make progress in the strategic cooperation of the two partners, and thus bring greater stability and democracy to an increasingly more globalised world.