Spain became a full member of the European Economic Community in 1986. Therefore, EU legislation is fully applicable in Spain. In this connection and according to figures published by the European Commission, Spain fully complies with the objectives established by the European Council and has implemented 2,701 Directives into national law.

A major impact of European Union membership for Spain, and for the other Member States, came in the mid-nineties with the advent of the European Single Market and the European Economic Area, which created a genuine barrier-free trading space.

Since then, the EU has advanced significantly in the process of unification by strengthening the political and social ties among its citizens. Spain, throughout all this process, has always stood out as one of the leaders in the implementation of liberalization measures.

10 new countries joined the European Union in May 2004 (Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia). Such enlargement of the EU poses a unique challenge since it is without precedent in terms of scope and diversity: an increase in land area of 23% and a population increase of almost 100 million people. Moreover, on January 1st, 2007, Romania and Bulgaria became new member States of the European Union⁶.

Spain holds significant responsibilities within the EU, evidenced by the fact that it is, along with Poland, the fifth country in terms of voting power in the Council of Ministers.

The introduction of the euro (January 1st, 2002) marked the beginning of the third Spanish Presidency of the European Council, representing the culmination of a lengthy process and a whole deal of growth opportunities for the Spanish and European markets.

With the euro in the European Union, a monetary zone has been established to form the world's number one trading power, triggering the integration of the financial markets and economic policies of the Member States adopting it. Such changes have also fostered the coordination of the tax systems of the Euro Zone Member States, thus further increasing the stability of the EU.

The euro has yielded clear results at an international level, promoting the visibility of the Euro Zone both in international and financial fora (the G-7 group meetings) and in multilateral organizations. The economic and commercial stability provided by the euro has further bolstered Spain's current economic growth along with additional international political presence.

Spain is the EU Member State that in recent years has received the most EU structural and cohesion funds - used to finance infrastructure and development projects. In fact, for the period 2007-2013, Spain is expected to receive 31.500 million euros in various EU structural funds and cohesion funds, becoming the second EU recipient of such funds, after Poland7. Moreover, Spain will receive a special Fund of 2,000 million euros for R+D activities, in accordance with the decisions taken in the last European Council of London. With these funds, the Government has R&D launched programs co-financed by private initiatives. The most important has been the Ingenio 2010 Program, which basically aims to achieve a situation where public and private investment in R&D&I is equal to 2% of GDP in 2010.

⁶ www.mae.es