Companies in the applicant countries and enlargement

Companies in the applicant countries and enlargement

The proportion of the companies that say they are well informed about the Union has increased since the first of these surveys was carried out in 2001. Yet, according to EUROCHAMBRES this percentage remains extremely low: 8.8% estimate being well informed whereas previously 35.5% said they ignored everything or knew little about the European Union or were not interested at all in these questions. Bulgarians are the best informed (18.8%), the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania rank last on the list with 4 – 6%. However, more than half of the guarantors are at least conscious that they do not fully exploit all available sources of information. Moreover, the study reveals that its own members, the national Chambers of Commerce, prove to be the most popular source of information before Internet. The companies’ interest specially concerns the European legislation.

Questioned on their knowledge level of the process, 49% of the companies admit not to have started any preparations for membership yet. The best informed are Latvian, Lithuanian and Hungarian companies (approximately 60%), the least informed Slovenes (39%) and Estonian (27%) companies. If the Union projects to integrate in 2004 all applicant countries, except Romania and Bulgaria, only one tenth of the companies consider being ready at the end of 2003. Regarding the application of EU rules, EUROCHAMBRES indicates that the score of 2.2 (on a scale from 1 to 4) is the same as in 2001, what makes it necessary to redouble efforts in this field. All big companies dedicated to export are also the best prepared and the most respectful of European rules. Only 12% of the companies have valued the transposition costs of the European legislation and the majority of them estimates that this specific expenditure should not exceed 0,5 M€. Lastly, only 7.5 to 13% expect a difficult implementation in the field of finances, the technical domain or for human resources.

It is unquestionably the companies that mostly support membership in the applicant countries: 93.3% of the firms are favorable to an enlargement, and only 3.8% of them are opposed to it against 59% of the general public opinion considering the enlargement being a “good thing” for their country. In Slovakia as well as in two countries further from joining the EU, Bulgaria and Romania, EUROCHAMBRES has taken down more than 97% of the companies favorable to membership. Latvian companies set themselves clearly apart with 75% of them in favor whereas the most reticent populations to an enlargement can be found in Estonia (see EUROBAROMETER in “Revue Elargissement”, n°26).

The general level of satisfaction (58%) with the negotiation process, however, (against 20% of dissatisfied) contains significant disparities. Slovenia, Bulgaria and Lithuania post up the highest level of satisfaction with a proportion of more than 70%. The enthusiasm of Polish and Hungarian companies is definitely less (respectively 40% and 51% of satisfied and 32- 37% of dissatisfied companies). Not surprisingly, Latvia shows a high proportion of dissatisfied firms (27%).

For more analyses see the

enlargement website of DREE.