The Process of Enlargement of the European Union

[Introduction]. A great deal has already been written about the adjustments the European Union (EU) should make in order to be able to accept new members, and how the applicant Central and East European countries (CEEC) should prepare for the rigours of membership. Even though the CEEC will have to make major efforts to qualify for membership, they have been expressing the expectation that accession to the EU is achievable within the next three to four years. Recently, however, Commission officials have reportedly estimated that the accession of these countries will probably happen later than first envisaged. They now seem to believe that the entry of even the more advanced applicants will not take place before 2002-3. Naturally the timing of the next enlargement of the Union will be determined to a significant extent by the progress made by the CEEC in the transition to democratic political systems with fully functioning market-based economies. However, the mechanism of enlargement itself is a time-consuming process, and this introduces a natural' delay factor. Just as the debate on Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has shifted from whether or not such a union is desirable to the means and practical difficulties of introducing a single currency, so the debate on the next enlargement has started to consider the problems and challenges associated with the practicalities of preparing the CEEC for and admitting them to the EU