The impact of the enlargement of the EU on SMEs in the European Union

The project invovled research on the expected impact of the accession of six candidate countries - the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia - on SMEs within an enlarged Union. The study analysed the impact of enlargement at a macroeconomic, sectoral and regional level. It concluded that the general impact of enlargement on SMEs will be small. The study further concluded that SMEs were unlikely to experience impacts from enlargement that would be distinctive in their nature and scale from the effects of wider global changes in international market opportunities and increased competition from lower-cost producers (on the global market). In many sectors, the impact of enlargement would be restricted to regions close to the potential new EU Member States.