AFP , PARIS
Monday, May 03, 2004,Page 12
The new EU goes back to work this week with 25 members, and the long-term economic consequences of its historic enlargement could prove greater than the continent's political reunification.
The EU is now a market of 455 million people, more than half again the size of the US, putting the EU third behind China and India.
With a comparable GDP last year of 9.746 trillion euros (US$11.7 trillion), according to the EU's statistics unit Eurostat, the union now rivals the US as the world's largest economy, though the latter is growing faster.
The 10 new EU members -- Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia -- have added 20 percent to the bloc's population, but only 5 percent to GDP.
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