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North Atlantic Treaty Alliance, NATO, was created after World War II in 1949 to protect Western Europe from the threat of Communism. In April 2004, seven countries between the Baltic and Black seas, that is, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Rumania, Slovakia, and Slovenia joined the existing 19 members, bringing the total size of the transatlantic military alliance to 26 states and pushing the NATO map eastward across most of the former Soviet satellite states and linking Western Europe all the way to Turkey. During the same period, on May 1, 2004, European Union (EU) also admitted on 10 new members, that is, Central and Eastern European and Mediterranean nations (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta), bringing the total number of EU member nations to twenty-five. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had criticized NATO's eastward expansion and the failure by Western powers to keep their promise not to deploy military bases near Russia's borders.
The admittance of the Eastern European states meant more political and practical help for Washington and its allies in the war on terrorism and in Iraq. Though the new members did not bring a lot in terms of equipment and prowess, they had the capacity to bring niche expertise that could prove valuable to NATO. The new membership for the new members was expected to bring credibility as well as new responsibilities, along with some privileges. Most members were expected to undertake serious reform measures to bring their militaries in line with NATO standards. They were expected to spend their defense money in more efficient ways and get more professional armies. Membership, however, does have its privileges.
As part of the alliance, they will have the opportunity to gain more military experience outside their own countries by participating in NATO-led peacekeeping missions in Afghanistan and, possibly, Iraq if the alliance reaches an agreement to send troops. (Daniel Keohane, March 2004) The eastward expansion of EU made it the largest unified market. As a consequence of EUs eastward expansion, the new members were required to adopt the EU's Common Commercial Policy and regulations and coordinate with the EU on customs administration and procedures... The volume of FDI that flowed into the new Central and Eastern European EU member nations from 1989 to 2003 totaled USD 117 billion, and most of the major investment projects in the new member nations were completed prior to EU expansion. Therefore, the projected rate of FDI flowing into new member nations was slow and that the monetary value of FDI was also expected to decrease. For the service sector, the integration was delayed as there were differences for sales and income taxes among the members of the EU. The gap between income levels and related standards of living in the new EU members and the more prosperous original members were expected to remain as the contribution of the new members to the economy of the EU was not great and economic power, market size, and spending power among the new members was not the same as in the original EU members.
A serious brain drain among new members was expected along with mass influx of laborers to original member nations. (The Impact of the European Union's Eastward Expansion, June 21, 2004) In conclusion, the eastward expansion of NATO and EU reflected European security vision that included the whole Europe, that is, the former Soviet sphere of influence, and thus the EU' original members' willingness to enlarge and include the less economically developed Central and East European (CEE) states and the desire of former communist countries to keep Russia's influence and possible threat to a minimum while securing and deepening democratization process introduced after 1989. Expansion of EU aimed at deep transformation while the expansion of NATO aimed to resolve the military crisis.
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