Future enlargement of the European Union | Wikipedia audio article
Channel: wikipedia tts
Date: 19/12/2018

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_enlargement_of_the_European_Union


00:02:27 1 Current agenda
00:04:40 1.1 Western Balkans
00:05:52 1.2 Turkey
00:08:37 1.3 Summary table
00:08:46 1.4 Status
00:08:55 2 States not on the agenda
00:11:16 3 Internal enlargement
00:16:56 3.1 Scotland
00:17:26 3.2 Catalonia
00:18:22 3.3 Flanders
00:18:57 4 Member state expansion
00:19:07 4.1 Cyprus
00:20:11 4.2 Ireland
00:20:40 4.3 Romania
00:21:00 5 Special territories of member states
00:21:33 5.1 British dependencies
00:23:03 5.2 Danish self-governing communities
00:26:17 5.3 Dutch constituent countries and special municipalities
00:27:51 5.4 French overseas departments and territories
00:29:36 6 See also



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SUMMARY
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There are five recognised candidates for future membership of the European Union: Turkey (applied on 14 April 1987), Macedonia (applied on 22 March 2004), Montenegro (applied in 2008), Albania (applied in 2009), and Serbia (applied in 2009). All except Albania and Macedonia have started accession negotiations. Kosovo, whose independence is not recognised by five EU member states, and Bosnia and Herzegovina are recognised as potential candidates for membership by the EU. Bosnia and Herzegovina has formally submitted an application for membership, while Kosovo has a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU, which generally precedes the lodging of membership application. In July 2014, Jean-Claude Juncker announced that the EU has no plans to expand before 2019 while Serbia and Montenegro, the most advanced candidates, are expected to join before 2025. While the others are progressing, Turkish talks are at an effective standstill.The accession criteria are included in the Copenhagen criteria, agreed in 1993, and the Treaty of Maastricht (Article 49). Article 49 of the Maastricht Treaty (as amended) says that any "European state" that respects the "principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law", may apply to join the EU.  Whether a country is European or not is subject to political assessment by the EU institutions.Past enlargement has brought membership to twenty-eight members since the foundation of the European Union (EU) as the European Economic Community by the Inner Six states in 1958.
The three major western European countries that are not EU members, Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland, have all submitted membership applications in the past, but subsequently froze them. They do however, along with Liechtenstein, participate in the EU Single Market as well as the Schengen Area, which makes them closely aligned with the EU. According to an Eastern Partnership strategy, the EU is unlikely to invite any more of its post-Soviet neighbours to join the bloc before 2020.  However, in 2014 the EU signed Association Agreements with Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, and the European Parliament passed a resolution recognising the "European perspective" of all three countries.