Firstly, most European nation states are too small and if European integration was introduced, the smaller countries can pool resources to create a powerful bloc and this will also help bring economies of scale to the smaller countries. All new members will have to adopt EU policies in order to maintain stability but also to help fight of illegal immigration, bring down the number of drug crimes and national crimes in general. Existing members already provide a great wealth of cultural, economic and political diversity with in each country and with the addition of new members this can be increased by being able to understand new kinds of cultures, the exchange of ideas leads to bigger multi cultural societies. The European union will also now have a stronger role in world affairs, which is strengthened dramatically every time a new member joins. Such areas will include foreign policy, trade policy and in other parts of global governance. The economy of each country will be boosted and latest research shows that when enlargement occurs next year Britain's GDP will increase by 1.75 billion per annum and furthermore create at least 2 million new jobs in the candidate countries. The future for enlargement already looks well underway; candidate countries have strengthened their economies and new democratic institutions being set up as well as greater respect for the individual's wishes and the minorities.
The disadvantages however are much less than the benefits; firstly on joining if the candidate countries do choose to opt to use the euro, then in a sense they will lose their identity as each country before joining had their won currency and many pundits have also argued that national pride will also be lost as well. On joining all nations will hand over most if not all their sovereignty to Europe which means that they will no longer have great control over their laws or economic policy either. Further more on losing sovereignty, the European Court of Justice is the highest court, which means that the countries own rule is not the final one in undecided cases and this can be changed by redirection to the court. Through open borders, there will be increased number of free movement between member states, which ultimately means increased populations, and larger responsibility for the country being. The Common Agricultural policy, even though it has its advantages, the biggest threat is that it's very expensive and only benefits countries with a high number of farmers in it. A great loss of cultural identity, history will appear to a degree but this wont happen so suddenly but nonetheless, still a cause for concern when talking about a countries diversity and also when it comes to the point when other citizens within the union will be sharing other peoples ideas and beliefs (for some this will be a disruption).
Language issues will be come another problem as the 13 new candidate countries are all linguistically different so when interpretations of EU work has to be done, it will be seen as flaccid and slightly unworkable challenge at first as the EU is still not prepared to do such things yet. It will furthermore become difficult for countries to create consensus with others, as they will both have the power of veto for example in areas of security and trade.
All countries will suffer after joining because it means they no longer have that power of veto especially in areas of agriculture and trade. A flood of cheap workers from the east will come to the western markets looking for work thus increasing demand for jobs, critics believe that even though over 2 million new jobs will be provided, this will not cope with the number of citizens who will be looking for employment in the long term. It will become ever difficult to control asylum seekers mainly because of open borders that allow free movement. The poorer countries will seek financial aid and this will come from the existing members budgets. Lastly, there have been several occasions where inefficiency and corruption have occurred; like money being wasted unnecessarily within the ever-complicated bureau that makes up the EU.
Enlargement presents a huge task to the European Union. Beyond the legal requirements, there are many complicated political and practical issues that must be successfully managed. The goal is to further integrate Europe into a single market. At the same time it must be acknowledge that the EU has moved beyond just a common market. The Union has legislated in areas of human rights, the environment and workers' rights. The enlargement facing the EU today poses a unique challenge, since it is without precedent in terms of scope and diversity: the number of candidates, the area (increase 34%) and population (increase of 105 million), the wealth of different histories and cultures this topic is of great intensity not only for applicant countries, but also the for Union itself.
