The Implications of the Accession of Bulgaria and Romania: The Case of the Enlarged Euro Zone

The accession of Bulgaria and Romania has a number of political and policy implications. Like many of those which joined the EU in 2004, they have different economic, political and social backgrounds. Thus, the impact of their accession on the future development of the EU deserves keen attention. The conventional scholarly wisdom, against this backdrop, is that EU membership of these two late comers is not likely to generate positive impact. Instead, it has been argued that the governance of the EU might be hampered. However, this paper contends that this may not necessarily be the case. In order to support this contention, this paper undertakes its empirical study with particularly reference to the future development of the euro zone. To make such a contention more systematic, this paper places a particular focus on the impact of the accession of these states on the overall governance of the EMU, as well as its functioning.