Regional Economic Integration And The European Union

INTRODUCTION

Although economic development has always been important for the countries throughout the history, it is observed that concernment of the notion has significantly increased in the last decades. In the contemporary world of today, except very few ones, almost all of the functioning governments especially for the ones which already ensured political stability in their territories assume economic development as one of the key targets to be achieved. Even the success of a government is measured with country’s economic growth.

Although there are so many internal and external reasons for that, two issues particularly worth to be pointed out. With the help of advancement of means of telecommunication, the demand of the individuals;

There are various kinds of agreements to promote the commercial activities between the countries. All of these agreements to a certain level create economic cooperation and integration.

METHODOLOGY

The purpose of this article is to provide basic information regarding the theoretical aspect of the regional economic integration and afterwards to talk about the process of regional integration in the European Union.

After defining the concept the levels and, the benefits and drawbacks of the regional economic integration will be discussed and the theoretical part of this article will be completed.

In the practice part, in view of the theoretical information, the case of the European Union will be analysed by going through developmental and transformational process of the Union in a historical sequence.

THE DEFINITION OF CONCEPT OF REGIONAL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION

Regional economic cooperation has become one of the most trending concepts in the global economy. It is widely accepted that, in the emergence of this trend, the success of the European Union plays an important

Secondly free movement of goods and factors of production result in the specialisation in the production of the goods and efficient use of the said factors in the member countries. Last but not least, free movement of factors of production also means more employment opportunities for the citizens of member countries which would increase the welfare as