It also seems that a regionally integrated market can increase foreign direct investments (FDIs), mainly due to the fact that this will appear as a better regulated market and as a market offering more opportunities than a smaller market. For example, in EU's case, we are talking about a market with almost half a billion consumers and coordinated with unified economic policies from Brussels. A highly stable market and with good growth potential, this will attract foreign investors. So, as a regionally integrated market, the EU also offers the advantage of a regulated market, with practical approaches that make the market successful.

Other advantages of regional economic integration are particular to specific countries. In the EU, this is the case of less developed countries, such as Greece, Portugal and Spain (at the moment of their adherence) or the countries of Eastern Europe (in the present). The fact that these countries adhered to the European Union meant that they had to commit to specific macroeconomic reform, as specified in their treaties of accession. This virtually not only improved macroeconomic conditions, but also significantly improved living standards for the citizens of those countries. Basically, accession to the EU was conditioned by the capacity of these countries to implement reforms that would allow them to eventually reach an economic level closer to the one in the EU.

Indeed, one of the problems lately in the EU is given by the discrepancy in economic development stages between the member countries. At the beginning, with the six founding members, these discrepancies were relatively small, the countries generally being at similar stages of economic development. However, with the accession of Greece (1981), Spain and Portugal (1986) and former East Germany (1990), this changed. The new countries were less developed and significant amounts of money, in the form of cohesion, social or development fund needed to be poured in so as to sustain these economies and bring them to a similar level as the ones of the member...

More and more challenging, these are countries that find their economic development levels somewhere at 50-60% of the EU average and this is a good case. Obviously, attempts are made even here to integrate these countries with fund injections, to develop their infrastructure, to deploy the appropriate macroeconomic policies.
It is a question for the future whether the EU, strongly integrated as it is, would be able to sustain Turkey's accession, for example. From an advantage point-of-view, Turkey would represent a huge gain, with its market of over 80 million consumers. On the other hand, Turkey's economy is at lower levels than the EU's and, again, a similar process would need to be performed, including capital infusion and macroeconomic reforms.

Bibliography

1. Regional Integration: Concepts, Advantages, Disadvantages and Lessons of Experience. May 2005. On the Internet at http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0001249/P1416-RI-concepts_May2005.pdf/.Last retrieved on September 15, 2007

2. Bangladesh Country Note. Promoting Regional Integration in South Asia: A Private Sector Perspective. October 2004. The World Bank/International Monetary Fund 2004 Annual Meetings. Washington DC. On the Internet at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTSOUTHASIA/Resources/Bangladesh-Final.pdf.Last retrieved on September 15, 2007

Regional Integration: Concepts, Advantages, Disadvantages and Lessons of Experience. May 2005. On the Internet at http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0001249/P1416-RI-concepts_May2005.pdf/.Last retrieved on September 15, 2007

Bangladesh Country Note. Promoting Regional Integration in South Asia: A Private Sector Perspective. October 2004. The World Bank/International Monetary Fund 2004 Annual Meetings. Washington DC. On the Internet at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTSOUTHASIA/Resources/Bangladesh-Final.pdf.Last retrieved on September 15, 2007