Small states and the internal balance of the European Union : the perspective of small states

Abstract

A satisfactory definition of a small state has not been found. Attempts to use quantitative criteria such as population and territorial size, gross domestic product and GDP per capita have not resolved the task successfully. They rather fuelled more controversy. However, despite these theoretical drawbacks, there is no denying that the EU has become, and will increasingly become with successive enlargements, a Community of small states. This is illustrated by the information in the appendix to this chapter, (Table 3), which shows that in the present EU of fifteen Member States, only five countries have a population of more than 40 million. The rest of the Member States, except the Netherlands, have a population of around 10 million or less. The EU presently has 13 membership applications before it, including that of Turkey which is being kept in abeyance. This means that in the future, when the EU grows eventually to 28 countries, as many as 19 Member States will have a population of around 10 million or less of which 11 will have around 5 million or less.