New members, new challenges

After Bulgaria and Romania's accession to the EU, some wonder if the new members and the new business opportunities they offer could take a foreign investor's interest from Poland.

Both countries have been posting high GDP growth rates in recent years. Between 2000 and 2006 Bulgaria's growth rate reached  5.1 percent while Romania's was 5.9 percent. However, the distance in economic terms to the old EU countries is much bigger than Poland's was during its EU accession.

Ewa Sadowska-Cieœlak of the Center for Social and Economic Research (CASE) institute said that Romania and Bulgaria's future growth will depend on their continuing economic reforms.

Sadowska-Cieœlak believes that there is a large possibility that reforms in those countries might slow down, as a result of reaching the goal of entering the EU and losing the motivation for further changes.

"In both countries, government coalitions are not very stable," said Sadowska-Cieœlak. "A minority government would seriously slow down reforms, which is not a good signal to foreigns investors."

However, a recent World Bank report on the ease of doing business portrays the new EU member states as business friendly. It ranks Romania 49th in terms of business friendliness and Bulgaria 54th, while Poland is ranked a lowly 75th.

Jacek J. Wojciechowski from the World Bank says that Bulgaria and Romania offer a better environment for business opportunities than Poland.

"Of course there is room for improvement in many cases, however I believe that those counties will continue in becoming more interesting for international companies," said Wojciechowski.