Eastern Enlargement’ Of The European Unıon – Changes In Trade Structure And Its Instabılıty

Abstract

The present paper studies changes in trade structures of the European Union (EU) member states, before and after the ‘Eastern enlargement’ of 2004. It focuses on geographical and commodity structures of trade of both old and new members in 2003 and 2011. It concludes that the ‘Eastern enlargement’ has led to a significant level of convergence of trade patterns between the two groups of countries. Effects on instability of the geographical structure of trade are also studied, but no systematic changes are detected.2