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Finally, and technically outside the Copenhagen criteria, comes the further requirement that all prospective members must enact legislation to bring their laws into line with the body of European law built up over the history of the Union, known as the acquis communautaire. In preparing for each admission, the acquis is divided into separate ...
The right to provide services has proven to be increasingly important as the European economy shifts towards a more service-based economy. Today, it is estimated that the services sector represents about two-thirds of the European economy and it is responsible for 90% of the overall creation of jobs in the EU. [ 3 ]
The four main criteria, which actually comprise five criteria as the "fiscal criterion" consists of both a "debt criterion" and a "deficit criterion", are based on Article 140 (ex article 121.1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Full EMU membership is only open to EU member states.
According to the Copenhagen criteria, membership of the European Union is open to any European country that is a stable, free-market liberal democracy that respects the rule of law and human rights. Furthermore, it has to be willing to accept all the obligations of membership, such as adopting all previously agreed law (the 170,000 pages of ...
The Maastricht Treaty (Article 49) states that any European country (as defined by a European Council assessment) that is committed to democracy may apply for membership in the European Union. [175] In addition to European states, other countries have also been speculated or proposed as future members of the EU.
During the process of the enlargement of the European Union, the acquis was divided into 31 chapters for the purpose of negotiation between the EU and the candidate states for membership for the fifth enlargement (the ten that joined in 2004 plus Romania and Bulgaria which joined in 2007). [4]
At a European Council Summit held in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 June and 22 June 1993, [2] the European Union defined the Copenhagen criteria regarding the conditions a candidate country has to fulfill to be considered eligible for accession to the European Union: Membership criteria require that the candidate country must have achieved:
A first concrete attempt to create an economic and monetary union between the members of the European Communities goes back to an initiative by the European Commission in 1969, which set out the need for "greater co-ordination of economic policies and monetary cooperation," [7] which was followed by the decision of the Heads of State or ...