Seriously, your elected president of some 4th tier piss poor country on the edge of the EU - you can join the EU, you will be given an entire system of government, new roads, schools, etc, your young unemployed will get to go and live in Paris or Berlin, sending home more Euros, and they will give you in hard currency BN's. When you travel they give you a seat, not a haybale and your cousins will be rich, and you get to hang out with Merkel. Its that or learn to like a few crumbs from Putinania, and have ruski mafia on your beaches.
Which would you choose?
What I said earlier was that laying roads in Romania is unlikely to help Scottish fishermen, or steel making in South Wales.
30-40 years ago, laying roads that linked London, Paris and berlin, probably did help the UK. With German industrial might being closer, only they would benefit from further south-eastern expansion.
But doesnt this sound like a Ponzi scheme, I mean unless Australia wants to join, they are going to run out of road eventually......
And I would suggest that eventually you will see tribal/religious hatred win out over EU paychecks, and you will see real strife between 2 or 3 of these small states, within the EU. Some of the rules/expectations of EU membership are a little hard for some of these countries, with conservative or religious views. Look at the grief Hungary gets.
At which point the EU is going to beg Nato (Meaning USA and UK) to lead the peacekeeping force. Maybe Scotland would send their one and only infantry Bn...…..