EU Enlargement

The EU agreed to begin proceedings to admit a large number of new member states from Eastern and Central Europe in 1997, and the accession process began in 1998.

Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia joined the EU on May 1st 2004. Bulgaria and Romania joined on January 1st 2007.

To qualify for EU membership, a state must meet the 'Copenhagen criteria'.

1. To be a stable democracy, respecting human rights, the rule of law, and the protection of minorities
2. To have a functioning market economy
3. To adopt the common rules, standards and policies that make up the body of EU law - that is, to incorporate the acquis communautaire into domestic law

While the EU has successfully enlarged on four previous occasions (1973, 1981, 1986 and 1995), it had never before taken on so many new members at once. The ten states that joined in 2004 added 105 million to the population of the EU, and increased its geographical size by 34 per cent.

Nor have the economies and cultures of the incoming member states been so different previously. The former Soviet bloc countries are considerably poorer than any pre-2004 EU member states, and have very young democracies.

As such, enlargement presents a number of major challenges, which were due to be resolved with the ratification of the EU constitutional treaty.