Main idea of the passage：

This passage deals with the European Union’s fifth and the largest enlargement, the progress in the accession negotiations, and benefits the enlargement will bring to the EU members and the candidate nations, and to other countries.

Structure of the passage：

The passage can be divided into four parts, the first two paragraphs being the first part, paragraph 3 to paragraph 9 being the second part, paragraph 10 to paragraph 14 the third part, paragraph 15 to paragraph 19 the fourth and last part.

The first part serves as an introduction – the European Union is going to have its fifth enlargement, and to provide new opportunities for businesses inside and outside the Union.

The second part tells the reader about the progress of the accession negotiations. At the EU semi-annual summit EU leaders set the date for the conclusion of the enlargement negotiations and set forth the accession criteria; the degree to which the criteria have been satisfied will determine the accession. While many chapters of the acquis have been provisionally closed, the controversial chapters concerning agriculture, competition, taxation, etc. still need to be negotiated.

The third part provides some data concerning the candidate nations, such as population, GDP, per-capita GDP and the proportion of trade in their GDP. It presents to some extent a picture of their economy, with some being very poor, their per-capita GDP accounting for only one third of the EU average.

The fourth and last part tell the reader that both the Union and the candidate nations will benefit from the enlargement, but not in the same manner. Candidate nations will benefit more thanks to a more efficient allocation of resources, greater investment and higher productivity growth. Those member nations with strong ties with the candidate nations also will benefit a lot. Agriculture will gain smaller benefits because of the lagging quality and health-related product standards in Eastern Europe and declining price differentials in farm products. On the whole, the enlargement should further enhance trade and capital flows and accelerate economic growth, particularly for the developing country candidates, and the previous enlargements have shown that the income gap between EU members and poorer candidate countries tended to narrow.

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