The foreign trade pattern and foreign trade specialization in the European Union: a comparison of six new member/candidate countries and the EU/15

The enlargement of the European Union will bring many political, economical, and structural changes on the continent, which requires careful and deep analysis to be made. This paper approaches the enlargement of the European Union from the aspect of trade pattern and trade specialization of six major EU candidates--namely, Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Poland, and the Czech Republic--focusing on the years from 1996 to 2002. In other words, the main purpose of this paper is to examine the international competitiveness of six candidate countries and to compare the structure of specialization in foreign trade with each other and the EU/15.