Konvergens i EU : Trivs Östeuropa i EU-gemenskapen?

Sammanfattning: The EU is a unique project both in scope and design. However at the time of writing they are losing a large member which makes it more relevant to investigate EU. This paper focuses on examining how member states develop in this community and how countries with different backgrounds respond to joining this community. The first question that is addressed is whether the richer and poorer countries converge economically against each other. This is done through the least squares method (ols) where we examine how the countries' GDP / capita at the beginning of the project effects their growth. Where a negative relationship between GDP/capita and growth would mean that members converge on one another financially. Part of the question is how a certain group has reacted to EU entry, focusing on examining the members of Eastern Europe. We examine how their membership in the EU also affects their economic growth through a similar model that was used earlier, which is then expanded with dichotomous variables and interaction terms. The study finds that convergence exists between countries but cannot determine whether it is absolute or conditional. However, there is no significant support for the fact that EU entry has affected countries from eastern Europe in any conspicuous way.