Capping a decade-long drive to build market-based economies on Communism's jagged ruins, eight former Iron Curtain countries, along with Malta and Cyprus, will officially join the European Union in May, 2004, bringing the membership to 25 nations and simultaneously forging a unified market of over 400 million people.
With cheaper wages than their neighbors to the west, lower corporate tax rates, well-educated workforces, and direct access to the larger EU market, what are known as the "accession countries" in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) offer US outfits an enticing springboard into the EU.
