Enlargement of European Union

              May 1, 2004 was the largest expansion of the European Union. 10 new members, eight of them formerly under communist rule, joined the European Union (EU): Lithuania, Hungary, Latvia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Czech Republic, Estonia plus Cyprus and Malta. This was the largest expansion in the history of the EU and brings profound changes to Europe. The EU population grew by 28 percent, with acres increasing by nearly 40 percent. Those countries were wishing to join the EU follow Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA). SAA is typically offer the incentive of free trade in exchange for commitments to political, economic, trade or human rights reform.

Second Image: State level Explanations                                                                                                                                                                                                    From the view of state level, this event would more focus on political regime other than economic system or level of development. Many of the new members were poor with young institutions and they saw the promise of Europe’s wide stability and eventual enrichment. In a political view, all 10 countries were joining European community have been recognized by the European Commission and member countries as Democratic. The membership process encouraged countries to became more democratic and respect the rule of law. The European Union (EU) emphasized their shared principles of democracy and freedom by allowing new countries.

Third Image: System level Explanation                                                                                                                                                                                                        From the view of system level, 2004 European enlargement was more like liberal which is distribution of preferences. The European Commission President Romano Prodi said, "Today's enlargement is the fifth and the largest in the history of the union, and I am convinced that it will not be the last. Other European countries and nations will decide to join our undertaking until the whole continent is unified in peace and democracy," From this quote, of course, European Union preferred to more liberals other than realists or constructivists. The conservative party of most of Europe is like U.S. democratic party, and their democratic party is really liberal. Many liberals in European Union have become a higher GDP, a higher standard of living, and their economy.

                In conclusion, I think the State Level is the best level of analysis to provide a better explanation of this event. By joining new members, economic modeling (one of the phenomena in state level) at the member state level played a key role in providing an evaluation of the effects of the alternative policies. Also many models were developed to analyze the state level conditions; fostering the rise of parties in the European Union.