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		Growing pains: EU enlargement Saturday May 1 Thursday, 29 April 2004 On Saturday 1 May the European Union will expand from 15 to 25 members with the accession of ten more countries. These include eight countries from the former Soviet Union, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Czech Republic and two countries from the south, Malta and Cyprus. Whilst welcoming the opportunities for British business these countries bring with them East Midlands MEPs Roger Helmer and Chris Heaton-Harris acknowledge that they will also bring a few problems at the same time. Conservative Euro-MP Chris Heaton-Harris, said: "The opportunities for British businesses in the long-term are exciting; but in the short and medium term there are a number of problems that, as yet, European Governments have failed to address properly like the Common Agricultural Policy and levels of migration. But even with these problems I still welcome these countries into the EU, because it will change politics in Brussels. No longer will "Old Europe" be able to dominate so much. It won’t just be British Conservative MEPs who question the need for all the red-tape and regulation being produced – in the future, we’ll be joined by business friendly Polish, Czech and Baltic state MEPs." East Midlands MEP Roger Helmer, said: "I believe that the accession of ten new countries from Central and Eastern Europe may come as a shock to the Brussels establishment. Some of these countries are far more Atlanticist, and less federalist, than many existing member states. Countries that have been under the boot of Moscow for decades are not keen to accept a similar relationship with Brussels. Meantime we shall be watching closely to see how well the Labour government's plans to control immigration from the new countries works out."