This assurance is accentuated in many studies of the enlargement and said to be the most important individual factor for continued strong growth in the 1 eastern European countries. It is also at the point of actual membership that the final trade barriers will be abolished and the investment channels will be fully opened. We can make a comparison with the countries that entered the EU earlier with income levels way below the average, i.e. Spain, Portugal and Ireland. For these countries membership meant a large inflow of capital and technology as well as a further increase in trade. The economic policy of the new member countries became more stable. Rapid growth and a convergence in the standard of living followed. This led to major gains for both the richer, existing member countries and for the newcomers. It would therefore be regrettable if the candidate countries' membership were allowed to delay or be diluted. Fortunately, there is now a clearer timetable and a strong probability that 8 of the 10 countries will become members in the coming years. However, after the enormous efforts made by the candidate countries in recent years, their actual membership must not be blocked by internal power games and ultimatums between the existing EU members. However, the attempts in recent years to create transition periods before candidate countries can enjoy the EU's free mobility for labour are worrying.
The aim is to assess whether the interviewee understands: (i) that money loses purchasing power when prices rise; (ii) that the changes in an amount saved in an account over five years depend not only on the annual interest rate applied to the amount saved the first year, but also on the interest accumulated thereafter; and iii) that the risk of investing in equities diminishes if a broad range of shares is acquired instead of only one type. The replies, obtained from a broad sample of randomly selected individuals representing Spanish territory as a whole and each of its regions, and provided by INE, reveal, inter alia, 3/7  the following results: (i) 58% of interviewees understand what inflation is; (ii) 46% understand the concept of compound interest; (iii) 49% understand the concept of risk diversification; and (iv) the percentage of correct replies increases with educational level and household income level. Given that the Survey includes questions from an international project to measure financial competences, it is possible to compare these results with those obtained in other countries, in particular with OECD countries and EU countries that have information available in this connection. The comparison shows that the percentage of correct replies in Spain regarding the concepts of inflation and risk diversification is below the average, particularly in the case of risk diversification, in which the averages for the OECD and EU countries stand at 62% in both groups (compared with 49% in Spain).