The Integration of Hungary into the European Union – Economic Aspects

Hungary became a member of the European Union on 1 May 2004, together with nine other, predominantly Central and Eastern European countries. The establishment and tightening up of institutional relations with the European Union started in the period before this date. In the course of the accession negotiations, Hungary had to fulfil a large number of criteria included in accession chapters; and the political deals and legislative harmonization laid the basis for Hungary to be able to succeed as an EU Member State. There is a wide range of approaches to integration, of course: in addition to the political and social dimensions, economic integration is also a legitimate, scientifically used and discussed concept. The statistical data examined in this study show that the Hungarian economy’s state of integration is controversial. On the basis of the foreign trade orientation, we can state that Hungary had been strongly integrated into the EU’s economy already before the accession. Other, partial indicators of integration also suggest that Hungary has moved towards a more intensive integration. Convergence to the level of economic development of the first, predominantly Western European, EU Member States, and the performance compared to countries with similar capabilities can also be a fundamental indicator of integration performance – these are a kind of non-partial convergence data. The procedure of catching-up with the development of the richer Western European countries has been slight and with several hiccups, while in comparison to the level of development of the countries in the region, Hungary has fallen back over the past nearly one and a half decades. I would like to point out that the situation of our country’s relative prosperity fell following our accession to the EU, and improvement started only after 2010.