Currently, nine countries on the eastern side of Europe are formally considered to be Candidate States lining up to join the European Union (EU). But do candidate countries understand the consequences of membership, and is it a good deal? Well, it depends whom you are – and good advice is hard to find – especially now, when membership is too frequently confused with issues connected with NATO, and represented by some as a joint package – which is not true. The realities of accession to the EU are very nuanced. So the post-accession experiences of a member having been through the process can be a useful benchmark for candidate countries to study.

In the later 90s, I led a project for the EU in Bulgaria. Our task was to implement a new Structural Fund aimed at alleviating the mass unemployment caused by the closure of the iron, steel and coal sectors. The closure of these two sectors was one of the many negotiated terms of Bulgaria’s accession. These sectors were inefficient, huge environmental polluters and could never be effectively brought up to EU regulatory standards without incurring costs that could never be recovered. The EU also had plenty of capacity across each sector. The closures consequently led to tens of thousands of men and women, often located in isolated regions, without alternative employment. The proposal from Brussels was to offer a Structural Fund of €11 million to be used across five affected sub-regions aimed at stimulating alternative economic activity and employment. This was to be achieved through the provision of training and low-level funding to stimulate entrepreneurship and the development of new small and medium sized enterprises.

At best it was a symbolic economic palliative, and was a policy failure. Some new firms were created but the creation of a hew hundred jobs  could not and did not compensate for the tens of thousands of jobs lost. The broader negative impact across these regions was powerful: secondary impacts were suffered as wealth was removed from affected towns, and additional costs were imposed on the government caused by new social and welfare claims. Many middle-aged and older people would never work again, and many younger people migrated to Sofia or left the country. Bulgaria lost about three million from its population of ten million to out-migration during this period; not all of it was due to accession, but it caused a significant contribution.

Although the macroeconomic condition of Bulgaria is now reasonably stable, socio-economic indices illustrate the state of steady decline. The European Commission forecasts the population to continue to decline to 5.8 million by 2050 as more people migrate ‘to greener economic pastures.’

Since accession, some sectors have developed: tourism, retail and business in the capital region are doing well. And manufacturing and production concerns have relocated from Western Europe because of Bulgaria’s cheaper costs. But away from such economic nodes, Bulgaria is a country of extreme regional economic and social disparities.

Even now, EU Structural and other Regional Development Funds are required to sustain social and economic stability because capital markets are unwilling to supply sufficient capital investment to stimulate sufficient growth, and the government is unable to afford full social-welfare cover. So EU Funds are in Bulgaria – as they are across most eastern European Member States – a substantial element of the economy. These include: the EU Resilience and Recovery Fund, €6.3bn; the Cohesion Fund, €11bn; the Green Europe Fund, €2bn, Common Agricultural Policy, €6bn, and a slew of other smaller utilities. However, none of this has halted Bulgaria’s situation. The population continues to decline, life expectancy is well below the EU average and the country measures badly against every social-economic average. For example, measured against the EU’s GDP/capita index – where the EU average is 1.0, Sofia has a score of 1.17 and comprises 51% of GDP, but every other region scores well under 0.5: the South Central is 0.37, North Central, 0.39 and North West, 0.38; and all of the regions score similarly against every other EU social indicator.

The debate around economic progress is changing from a focus on how Bulgaria has done to how are Bulgarians doing. The case is that membership of the EU does not deliver universal standard improvements. And can exacerbate rather than remove existing regional development problems.

Bulgaria is not unique – as a similar story can be observed in most of the more recently acceding Member States in Eastern Europe. In a similar way to Bulgaria – economic wealth in the Baltic countries has become focused in the capitals, with the regions suffering a relative decline. And eight of the ten Member States with highest forecasted population decline are in the new East, with Bulgaria, Latvia and Lithuania each forecast to lose another -20% of their populations by 2050.

Turning to Georgia, one has to ask what will be the net costs and benefits of Georgia joining European Union. What is the actual aim? Will European markets substitute existing trade relationships? Will investment from Europe actually happen? And underlying this is the interrelated issues of membership impacting on existing economic partnerships, and the cost of adhering to the standards of the Acquis Communitaire.

Georgia’s most important current trade partners include exports to Azerbaijan, Bulgaria and Turkey, and imports from Turkey Russia and China. The value of exports to Azerbaijan was $532m in 2021; Bulgaria was $253m, and the next largest EU trade partners were Spain, $89M then Germany, $68m. But above each of these, exports to China and Russian were a combined $1.3bn. To think that Europe will replace these trade partnerships is very improbable.

The lesson from Bulgaria and others is that membership might offer new opportunities but this has to be assessed and offset against the costs required in order to adhere with the higher standards of the Acquis. And a further issue is that these negotiations can also expose strategic sectors. For instance, following accession, the major external investor into Bulgaria was Russia, which invested into the oil and gas sector, taking control of refining, distribution and the pipeline networks.

Georgia should be able to make a free choice on European Union membership, and if this is what the people want – make its choice free from external interference. But people should be aware of the potential balance of consequences across its society. Sofia to Munich is a relatively easy road journey. But Munich to Tbilisi is a different prospect.

May 22