EU ENLARGEMENT

EU ENLARGEMENT If you judge them just by economic criteria, which of the 13 countries trying to join the European Union are actually qualified? Ask PricewaterhouseCoopers, a firm of accountants, which has devised a barometer of readiness. It includes 20 different indicators, bunched into four sets: macroeconomic stability, in particular the inflation rate and the level of public debt; economic structure (GDP per person and the significance of farming); economic integration with the EU, mainly in trade and investment; and economic infrastructure (university enrolment rates, telephones per person and so on). The first three of these four broad criteria are each given a maximum weight of 30%, and the fourth 10%, to form the index. The higher the index, the readier a country is to join.