Costs and Benefits of Poland’s Membership in the European Union

The report examines the costs and benefits of Poland’s membership in the EU. It analyses the costs and benefits, the opportunities and threats in some of the more important areas of integration and Community policies have been analysed.

The report illustrates the analysis of the costs and benefits of Poland’s membership in the European Union. Here, the costs and benefits, the opportunities and threats in some of the more important areas of integration and Community policies have been analysed. The study covered each of the three pillars of the European Union. A special attribute of the study is the fact that an analysis of an alternative scenario – even if of an indicative nature – can be found in each of the areas, which assumes that Poland fails to join the European Union. The report presents two scenarios of the consequences (costs and benefits) of membership, taking into account the final results of negotiations on accession.

This publication comprises seventeen chapters. These are shortened versions (syntheses) of the full study reports. In the first chapter the authors analyse the costs and benefits of integration in macro-economic terms – describing the impact of Poland’s membership in the European Union (or of staying out of it) on the basic macro-economic figures. In the second part, the financial flows between the EU and Poland are presented. The next chapter discusses the impact of Poland’s membership in the European Union on the functioning of Polish enterprises and, to a lesser degree, on the position and economic behaviour of Polish consumers. The fourth chapter deals with an analysis of the situation in the regions and the perspective of their development ensuing from accession in a spatial context. Further on, the membership’s impact on the legal system in Poland is discussed.

The scenario of Poland’s integration with the European Union is analysed with respect to all current pillars of the European Union. Discussion of the first pillar will cover the most important Community policies. The benefits and costs of integration are thus thoroughly analysed in such areas as agriculture, social policy, environmental protection policy, research and development policy, trade policy, competition policy, transport policy, education and human resources, etc. The following areas, on which the authors focus their attention, are the other two pillars – the Common Foreign and Security Policy (including the creation of the framework for the European Security and Defence Policy) and internal security, co-operation in the area of the judiciary, the police and the Customs. The next chapter illustrates the institutional and political consequences of both scenarios in question. Here, the most important thing is the attempt to answer the question of what the political and institutional benefits would be for Poland, ensuing from an enlargement of the EU. The last section of the publication deals with social communication – and deals above all with an analysis of the social consequences which may be caused by our membership of the EU – or our failure to be so – and with determining the hierarchy of benefits and losses ensuing from our integration with the EU in the eyes of the public.

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