EU Enlargement

What is EU enlargement?

European Union (EU) enlargement describes the process of admitting new member states to join the EU.

Since ‘the six’ (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) signed the Treaty of Paris in 1951, creating the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the EU has successfully enlarged on five occasions: 1973, when the UK, Ireland and Denmark joined; 1981, when Greece became the tenth member nation; five years later when Spain and Portugal joined in 1986; 1995, when Austria, Sweden and Finland came aboard; and when the most recent Accession Treaty went into force on May 1st 2004. At that point, the EU admitted Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia, and experienced the “biggest enlargement ever in terms of scope and diversity”.

These ten countries brought the total number of EU member states to 25, an increase of 66 per cent. They added 100 million citizens, brought the EU population to 454 million people - seven per cent of the world’s population - and created the biggest economic area in the world.

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

To be a stable democracy, respecting human rights, the rule of law, and the protection of minorities

To have a functioning market economy

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 treaties limit the scope for entry to the EU to 'any European state', 'Europe' is nowhere defined in geographical terms.


Background

The EU agreed to begin proceedings to admit new member states from eastern and central Europe at the Luxembourg council of 1997, and the accession process began in 1998.

One applicant, Turkey, did not meet the democratic and economic criteria spelled out in the Copenhagen criteria, which prohibited it from moving forward. But the remaining prospective member states began the process of bringing their domestic laws into line with the body of EU law known as the acquis communautaire.

The Nice Treaty of 2001 built on the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam, which proposed “to consolidate the union and streamline its decision-making system before enlargement”. It also set out the EU's new arrangements, and following ratification by all member states (Ireland rejected Nice in one referendum, but then agreed it in a second one) the accord entered into force.

In addition to incorporating the acquis, prospective member states were required to conclude negotiations with the EU on transitional arrangements. The EU itself was required to modify its institutional and budgetary arrangements to accommodate the new members. For example, financial assistance worth €40 billion over three years (2004-2006) was included in the accession arrangements for the ten new member states and agreed to in Copenhagen in December 2002. This, along with the trade barriers that were removed in the 1990s, was designed to help the ten new countries integrate their economies into the EU.

There are three institutions that decide EU policy. The Council of the European Union (‘the council’) represents member states and is the main governing body dealing with EU enlargement. When a new country is being considered to join the union, the council must agree unanimously. Formal negotiations with Bulgaria and Romania opened in February 2000, and both hope to join by 2007. Turkey has had an associate agreement since 1963 and submitted an application for membership in 1987, but failure to meet some of the requirements outlined in the Copenhagen criteria has delayed its accession. Finally, as a result of negotiations ending in October 2005, talks with Turkey formally opened, and they were followed swiftly by the opening of talks with Croatia.


Controversies

While the EU has historically evolved successfully to incorporate new members and new ideals, the latest phase of development has been and continues to be particularly challenging.

EU enlargement is frequently presented as part of an historic mission to reunite Europe. An enlarged EU will hope to achieve greater economic and political influence globally, and spread prosperity throughout the EU by expanding the single market.

While there is little opposition to EU enlargement as such, concerns have been voiced about the pressure on EU budgets from the poorer new members. Media reports ahead of the 2004 accessions predicted a wave of immigrants coming from the east in search of work and benefits. Until February 2004, only the UK and Ireland had not taken measures to limit the work rights of immigrants from the new member states - and the UK announced measures that month.

EU enlargement is also controversial at the ideological level: some say the continued expansion of the union dilutes the founding vision and the less explicit principles it rests on.
The latest round of enlargement brings a large number of states into the EU that have dramatically different political histories and cultures from the rest of the union. Eight of the accession countries are former members of the communist Soviet bloc which means they have only been democratic states for less than 20 years. During the ten years leading up to accession considerable “twinning” work took place in order to build institutions in the eastern European applicants.

Early on there was a tendency to regard these new members as in some way junior to the existing members. Negotiations almost broke down over the financial terms of accession: the EU, led by France, proposed that incoming member states should not be given access to the same level of subsidies under the common agricultural policy (Cap). Poland, the largest new member state and whose economy is heavily agrarian, objected, threatening to derail the process, until the EU compromised in October 2002.

Another major outstanding problem is the allocation of commissioners to member states and of votes in the council. Moreover, the union is governed by the laws spelled out in the Nice Treaty, which says membership is limited to 27 countries. Talks on a draft European Constitution that would deal with these issues broke down in December 2003, just months before the new member states were due to join. Again, the 'old' members - France, Germany and the Benelux countries - found themselves at odds with newer members such as Spain and the incoming countries, principally Poland. The failure to agree on the new constitution in late 2003 was a blow to the enlargement programme, but incorporation of the ten new states still went ahead in May 2004, under the provisions of the Nice Treaty.

A constitution was finally agreed, but in May and June 2005, after ten countries had ratified the document, France and the Netherlands rejected it in separate national referenda. Subsequently the EU scrapped the 2006 deadline for ratification, deciding instead to set a new timetable midway through 2006 when it should be clearer to members whether they should try to push through the constitution in its current form or redraft it entirely. Countries such as Bulgaria and Romania are relatively unaffected by the delay of a ratified constitution, but at the same time it leaves the future membership of Croatia and Turkey – who would take membership up to 29 - in doubt.

There are other obstacles in the way of Turkey joining the EU, however. A principle concern is about human rights abuses, from torture to a lack of freedom of speech and religion. Furthermore, there is the issue of Cyprus – EU officials want Turkey to recognise the whole island, not just the Turkish-Cypriot republic in the north. However, Turkey does have a functioning market economy working in its favor, its trade programmes with the EU have successfully incr