The scale of change that European Union Enlargement is driving through at a microeconomic level is only starting to be understood. Though it is quite a while since 10 new member states joined the Union on 1 May 2004, the real surprise is the speed and extend to which European countries like are being impacted.

Historically the largest community of Americans outside the States has always been in Europe. After WWII hundreds of military bases (US and NATO) criss-crossed Belgium, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain Turkey and UK, but also Middle East areas such as Bahrain, Egypt and Saudi Arabia  providing substantial business opportunities to European SME’s.

With the EU Enlargement there is no geopolitical reason anymore why the US armed forces should remain stationed in Germany and the western alliance. If there is still such a thing as a “boarder to be defended against the Eastern threat”, it is now 1000 miles more East and stretches from Poland over the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria to Turkey.

And therefore the US government decided to relocate 50 % of its troops currently stationed in Germany into those new EU member countries. Subsequently to this decision, over the next decade huge developments of brand-new military bases are taking place, providing a vast range of business opportunities for GSA partners.

The current SME’s in Germany and UK are not able to follow their relocating customers to their new destinations, and the local businesses at the new locations are a long way of being prepared to become GSA “fit”. And this is where the gap is.

Currently the US government is looking desperately for providers of facility management services, for example, and the ever increasingly budgets for the fight against terrorism entailed increased budgets for security products and services, but there are so many other opportunities that the list is endless.

The biggest GSA trade-show outside the US is taking place in Heidelberg every October and offers opportunities to meet buyers from Europe, Middle East and Africa.

As of yet, most US companies has ignored the European and Middle East theatre and went for the low hanging fruit in CONUS.

However, with an increasing demand overseas and a lack of GSA suppliers, competition on the other side of the Atlantic is much less than in the US and starting to commercialise on EMEA GSA opportunities could just be the stepping stone for canvassing commercial European markets.

Eugene Rembor heads up a consulting firm in London. He helped many GSA suppliers to commercialise on business opportunities in EMEA - including the Iraq reconstruction business opportunities, the reconstruction of Louisiana after the Hurricane Katrina / Rita, and the relocation of US troops within Europe and the Middle East.