Abstract:

Today’s European Union, with its 28 Member States (27 nowadays – author.) and a population of approx. 500 million, is the result of an integration and enlargement process of more than half a century, which is continuously evolving. The EU's enlargement policy deals with the countries currently aspiring to become members of the European Union. The European Union’s enlargement policy has traditionally been described as the EU’s most successful foreign policy because it has managed to trigger the expansion of the democratic ideal across the European continent. Extra-EU refers to transactions with all countries outside of the EU: the rest of the world except for the European Union (EU) Member States. International trade - especially the size and evolution of imports and exports - is an important indicator of the performance of the European Union (EU) economy, showing how it interacts with other countries and its position. The structure of the EU trade in goods by top 5 partners both in terms of imports and exports was analyzed in the article.  The dynamics of the EU-28 extra total trade turnover was analyzed and the trend line of it was built using one of the functions available for the purpose, taking into account the R² value. The dynamics of such constituents of the EU-28 extra trade as exports, imports, trade balance and exports to imports ratio were analyzed by the author. The trend lines were built using the appropriate functions, taking into account the R² value. Two periods of time (years) were taken for the projection of the trend line direction of each component of the EU-28 extra trade under analysis.