The impact of EU trade agreement with central and eastern european countries : the case of Spain

This paper makes a tentative forecast of the impact on Spanish trade of the liberalisation of economic transactions between the European Union and the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEECs), as envisaged in the association agreements aimed at the eventual enlargement of the EU to include these countries. For this purpose, it describes the trade patterns between the signatory countries ÄSpain, the rest of the EU and CEECsÄ since the fall of the communist bloc and analyses, through the econometric estimation of a gravity model, the determining factors in these patterns. Lastly, starting from the projection of the model estimated, along with several complementary analyses, a prediction of the agreements' effects on Spanish trade is made.