The Delegation of the European Commission to the Republic of Korea

In Copenhagen on 13 December 2002, the European Council took one of the most momentous steps in the entire history of European unification. It decided to welcome 10 more countries to join the EU on 1 May 2004.

In taking this decision, the European Union was not simply increasing its surface area and its population. It was putting an end to the split in our continent - the rift that, from 1945 onwards, separated the free world from the Communist world. So this fifth enlargement of the EU has a political and moral dimension.

Not only geographically but also in terms of their culture, their history and their aspirations, the countries concerned - Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia - are decidedly European. In joining the European Union they have joined the democratic European family and are taking their full part in the great project conceived by the EU's founding fathers. The accession treaties, signed in Athens on 16 April 2003, allow the people of the new member states to vote and to stand for election, on the same terms as all other EU citizens, in the European parliamentary elections in June 2004.

he long road to EU membership

The road to this particular enlargement starts in 1989, with the fall of the Berlin wall and the iron curtain. The EU moved swiftly to set up the 'Phare' programme of financial assistance, designed to help the young democracies rebuild their economies and to encourage political reform. In Copenhagen on 22 June 1993, the European Council stated for the first time that "the associated countries in central and eastern Europe that so desire shall become members of the European Union".

At the same time, the European Council laid down three major criteria that candidate countries must meet before they can join the EU.

The Commission made recommendations and Parliament gave its opinions. On this basis, the European Council in Luxembourg (December 1997) and Helsinki (December 1999) gave the go-ahead for negotiations with 10 central and eastern European countries plus Cyprus and Malta.

The treaties of Amsterdam (signed on 2 October 1997) and Nice (signed on 26 February 2001) are designed to consolidate the Union and streamline its decision-making system before enlargement.

Negotiations with 10 of the candidate countries were completed in Copenhagen on 13 December 2002. The agreements reached give these new member states the mechanisms and transitional periods they need in order to meet all their obligations. Before accession, each of them must pass its own national laws incorporating the whole acquis communautaire - which amounts to 26,000 pieces of legislation and runs to around 80,000 pages. This legislation must not only be adopted but also applied in practice.

Clearly, this means a huge amount of work for the national parliaments and other bodies in these countries whose institutions have only recently been rebuilt. But this is what it takes to ensure that the EU's policies and the single European market continue operating smoothly. The 15 older member states are, of course, doing all they can to help.

The European Union is concerned to ensure that enlargement on this scale will not turn it into a mere free trade area. So the EU wants to strengthen its internal cohesion and make sure that this continent-wide family of nations can work together efficiently and effectively.

As Commission President Romano Prodi has pointed out, by sticking to its commitment to the candidate countries the Union has put an end to the injustice and brutality of the 20^th century, with its totalitarianisms and the Cold War. But the EU is also showing it can put into practice a new philosophy of international relations ? one that reflects Europe's unity yet diversity, its national differences yet its shared values. "The European integration process and Europe's recent history are an acknowledgement of the points we share and those that set us apart. Enlargement will mark the first attempt to create a new type of citizenship on a continental scale. And it will bring a huge increase in citizens' rights and power for the states.' (From President Prodi's speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, on 6 November 2002).

On average, the EU's 75 million new citizens earn only 40% of the income enjoyed by people in the rest of the Union. That is why the accession arrangements include financial assistance worth €10 billion in 2004, €12.5 billion in 2005 and €15 billion in 2006. This will help the economies of the 10 new EU countries to catch up with the other 15. Some are growing strongly, and integration between the 10 and the 15 is already largely complete, thanks to the removal of trade barriers in the 1990s and the domestic reforms being carried through by the governments of the 10.

The €40 billion or so to be paid from the EU budget to the new member states in 2004-2006 will be spent mainly on structural and regional projects, support for farming, rural development, domestic policies and administrative costs. The deal was agreed by the EU and the ten new member states at Copenhagen in December 2002. It keeps to the rules laid down by the Berlin European Council (in March 1999) for EU spending until 2006.

How large can the EU become?

The enlarged EU of 25 countries and 454 million people will expand even further in 2007, when Bulgaria and Romania join ? if all goes according to the plans agreed at Copenhagen.

On 3 October 2005 formal negotiations began on Croatia and Turkey's application to join the European Union. Already in 1999 the Helsinki European Council had decided that "Turkey is a candidate State destined to join the Union on the basis of the same criteria as applied to the other candidate States." Turkey is a member of NATO and the Council of Europe. It has had an association agreement with the EU since 1964 and has been an applicant for EU membership since 1987.

But Turkey lies on the very edge of the European continent, and the prospect of its joining the EU raises questions about where to draw the ultimate boundaries of the European Union. Can any country anywhere apply for EU membership and start negotiations provided it meets the political and economic criteria laid down in Copenhagen? Certainly, the countries of the western Balkans such as Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Serbia and Montenegro could apply once they have achieved political stability and meet the Copenhagen criteria.

Indeed, it is in the EU’s interests to promote stability in the regions that lie on its doorstep. Enlargement pushes back and lengthens the Union's borders. In 2004 it has had Belarus, Russia and Ukraine as its next-door neighbours. It will have to step up cross-border co-operation with them on transport and environmental policy as well as on issues such as internal security and the fight against people smuggling and other forms of international crime.

If it is a success, could this same strategy be applied to the EU's relations with countries on the southern shore of the Mediterranean? Questions like these open up the whole debate about what it means to be European, what is the ultimate purpose of European integration and what are the EU's interests in the world at large. It is time to redefine and reinforce the EU's preferential agreements with its near neighbours, and to do so in the most wide-ranging terms possible.

THE MAIN STAGES OF THE EU'S FIFTH ENLARGEMENT