Talk:List of European Union member states by accession

message: This section begins with It is generally expected that the states of southeastern Europe will be the next states to join the European Union, and that it will still take some time for Iceland, Norway and Switzerland to join, since public opinion is not yet in favour in those three states  I think this section should at least be rewritten as it is, in my opinion, insinuating that eventually Iceland, Norway and Switzerland will join. That it is just a matter of time. I know the Norwegian situation best, and it is far more likely that Norway will stay out than ever join the EU. This because: 
1) Membership was turned down twice in Referendum already, and it's widely accepted in Norwegian politics that the "rules" wont be changed in case of a new membership application. Thus there will be held a referendum in that case. 
2) Last years the opinion polls have mostly shown a "no" majority
3) Joining the EU is a greater step for the population each time, as the EU continues to include more national matters in its international cooperation. 
4) The EEA has proved to work very well
5) The main arguments against entering the EU remains the same as before. Fisheries and agriculture being one of the main argues and the people not really seeing the need for joining as the economy is boosting and the everyday matters like work, education, travel etc are taken care of thanks to EEA and Schengen.
It's also worth mentioning that Iceland becoming member is also an unlikely scenario, especially if Norway don't. As i wrote, fisheries is one of the main reasons why Norwegians voted "No", Iceland is by far more dependent of it's fisheries than Norway and so the "fisheries-argument" is even stronger there.   —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tordenskrall (talk • contribs) 13:37, 29 October 2007 --Tordenskrall 13:56, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's true - Norway does not think it's overfishing the North Sea (Nor is Iceland willing to come to the table on Cod War issues), and joining the EU will mean that it has to stop illegal whaling. it's unlikely they'll ever do so - the section is mostly original research, and should be removed. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry 13:41, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Has a good neutral description of the situation in Norway. I don't know the details on Icelandic whaling, but discussions on whaling probably belong to another article. It's however true that if the EU in membership negotiations demand a stop in Norwegian whaling, that would probably be enough to cirtain "No" in the referendum.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tordenskrall (talk • contribs) 13:50, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Likely Next Enlargement 

message: Geez, one might think that European Union member states was enough. Actually, that one was already pretty much redundant, but I guess you can never have have enough redundancy. That's why it's called redundancy. 
People just seem to want to create more and more articles about the European Union, without even bothering to check if they are actually serving any need. Someone else please bother with all the merging and/or deletion tags that should be applied to this and the other article. Aris Katsaris 01:09, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  What is the point of having this article, or European Union member states, when this information is already included in European Union?  What surprises me is that a moderator even placed this article in the "Did you know?" category.  It seems like he or she would have realized that surely this information about a topic as big as the EU was redundant to some other article in Wikipedia.  71.65.54.92 04:15, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: European Union desperately needs to be merged, and European Union member states is not really good at what it does: It's just another futurology compilation. I'd rather suggest that the relevant sections from European Union and the whole of European Union member states be merged into this, and that European Union be split up further. In addition, no one complains that List of U.S. states by date of statehood lists info already available elsewhere (History of the United States, and many others, probably); that's what lists are there for, giving list-like information quickly and easily. —Nightstallion (?) 05:40, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

text: No problem with that; I'll merge European Union member states into this one. Good? —Nightstallion (?) 06:41, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redundant redundancy 

message: I am seeing black colored cells in the table. Can we fix that please? Shawnc 07:23, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm afraid that's a problem on your end of the line, not on Wikipedia's — it appears as light green, light yellow and light red for the majority of the users. What's your system configuration? —Nightstallion (?) 07:57, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was also a problem for user 137.189.4.1 whose edit summary read "Changed colour of some unreadable cells".  I have the problem under IE 6.0.29 but Firefox 1.0.7 works ok. Shawnc 08:11, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Mh. I s'pose similarily coloured cells in the tables at trade bloc, African Economic Community and so on don't work either? —Nightstallion (?) 08:20, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I just tried, and they show up fine there. I s'pose the problem is related to the... curious colour codes used; I'll change them to standard web colours. —Nightstallion (?) 10:43, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Changed the colours to pastel tones that actually work in IE, as well. —Nightstallion (?) 13:17, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It works for me now, thanks. Shawnc 18:07, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Gladly! —Nightstallion (?) 20:23, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cell color 

message: Akrotiri and Dhekelia are already listed under Cyprus, where they logically belong IMO; this can, of course, be discussed and changed, but the way it currently is feels intuitively "right" to me. —Nightstallion (?) 10:38, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They are "possession" of the UK, so their were "not included" for the first time when UK joined (for contrast - Gibraltar joined then; other UK possessions don't joined, etc. - why divide the SBAs from the other British territories and not list them in the UK list (also I would like it to be specifically listed, not only "the other 12 territories" - like France list is full, etc.). Of course there is this detail that when Cyprus joined there was declaration that this does not change the status of the SBAs - eg. they are dealt with in this case too, but the first case is when UK joined. Agree? 199.64.72.252 07:39, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough, I can see your reasoning and will change the table. —Nightstallion (?) 23:37, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Explaining my revert 

message: Why are Russia, Byelorussia, Moldova, and Ukraine not considered potential candidate countries? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.142.82.224 (talk • contribs) . on 20:59, 16 February 2006 
:Ask the European Commission or take a look at Enlargement of the European Union. —Nightstallion (?) 20:49, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not potential candidates? 

message: Could someone tell me, why did Denmark (and Norway) withdraw their application when the UK's was vetoed? I know why Ireland did, but can't think of any reason why the other 2 would've - RedHot 18:21, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Solidarity, I s'pose, and protest against de Gaulle's arbitrary actions. —Nightstallion (?) 19:20, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Denmark's Accession 

message: "On May 19, 2006, the European Union's Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said that he expected Iceland to join the European Union before Croatia would."
What is the purpose of this statement?  What does it add?  There's nothing in the paragraphs above that imply that there's some reason we should have thought that Croatia would join before Iceland.  It gives the impression, like too many Wikipedia articles, that facts that have very little encyclopedic value are just thrown into the article as they happen.  Unless some context is added that explains why anyone would care that Iceland might join the EU before Croatia, this statement should be removed. —Cleared as filed. 12:23, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it was more or less assumed that the Balkans would be the next states to join after BUL and ROU, but Rehn stated that he expected Iceland to join first, which was something of a surprise to insiders... I'll try to make it a bit clearer still, okay? —Nightstallion (?) 06:07, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Out of place statement 

message: :Image:European_Union_as_a_single_entity_in_the_world.png is somehow not working properly as thumbnail.
Watching the high res version does work, but I have o idea how to fix this.
:Yeah, I've noticed this too; it works properly for me as an image on this page, and when viewed at full size, but not on the image page itself... No clue as to why. Help? —Nightstallion (?) 20:59, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  World picture broken 

message: <removed DYK box> (reapperance because of the merging, the merged from article is what I beleive appeared in January. Please do not nominate this article again though... ) ++Lar: t/c 11:57, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're wrong, the article that was featured was list of European Union member states by political system. —Nightstallion (?) 12:14, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article was selected for [[WP:DYK|DYK]]! 

message: Should this article be merged into Enlargement of the European Union? Seems to cover a lot of common ground AndrewRT - Talk 19:01, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No; I'll explain below. —Nightstallion (?) 12:34, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge? 

message: I would like to propose a reorganisation of articles about the EU, including merging and renaming as follows:
* Enlargement of the European Union (EEU): rename to Future Enlargement of the European Union
* List of European Union member states by accession: Merge future info into EEU article, and past info into History of the European Union. keep as a simple list.
Does this sound feasible? AndrewRT - Talk 23:46, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, for the simple reason that this article is only meant to be a very quick overview -- I created it with the explicit intent of making a featured list on the topic, summarising only the most important aspects of enlargement and leaving the details (likelihood of future enlargement, controversiality of Turkey issue, ...) to Enlargement of the European Union. The main part of this article are its lists, diagrams and maps, that's why I'm strongly against merging it. (Besides, the other article is already far too long, anyway, and should be partially split into the respective "COUNTRYNAME and the European Union" articles...) —Nightstallion (?) 12:34, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Structure of Articles

message: :Image:EU Accession Croatia.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
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BetacommandBot (talk) 05:53, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:EU Accession Croatia.png

message: :Image:Turkey EU logo.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is  other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page.  Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot (talk) 02:22, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Turkey EU logo.jpg

message: :Image:The Sun too is a star.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is  other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page.  Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot (talk) 02:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:The Sun too is a star.jpg

message: How about merging these into one sortable list? Would require each on its own line and a bit of reorganisation but not too hard to do. But would it be a bit to complicated?- J.Logan`t: 22:10, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Em.. The width of the lists are already full of useful information ("special territories" and "application result/notes" respectively) already. Maybe I'll try something in my sandbox, but I think it would be hard to come up with a pleasant compromise. - SSJ ☎ 22:42, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Granted, thanks. With the territories though, I was thinking some kind of drop down or we could cut it out. I'm quite sure that data is elsewhere, or at least it should be, in a more generic list. It is something that ought to be in the table on Member State of the European Union rather than the lite info like domains etc.- J.Logan`t: 22:47, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, special territories are more important than web domains. - SSJ ☎ 23:24, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If I may be so bold, you could kill the last three columns on the member states page, and indeed the official name col (which seems the source of quite a few reverts per week), and the essential value will still be there with plenty of room for data like territories which matter far more to the list.- J.Logan`t: 00:29, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Affirmative. - SSJ ☎ 00:40, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

text: Nobody intends to flush valuable data down the toilet! We were talking about the possibility of merging them, in any case without killing data. The insertion of a row for special territories in Member State of the European Union preserves the facts of the uppermost table in this article. And if this article merge is fullfilled, the data in the lower table will also be preserved in some way or another. In my opinion, all the edits that were done since yesterday were good, and neither of them represented a preparation for a merge of articles. So please don't revert them all. - SSJ ☎ 22:29, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: As I see, 10 days later, much of the info (mostly references links) is gone and NOT TO BE FOUND ANYWHERE on the other pages. Additionaly, there is NO CONSESSUS FOR REMOVAL in this discussion. I am restoring the article to the status that it had achieving "featured article". Any meaningfull and referenced changes are of course welcome, but AFAIK blatant deletions are not. Alinor (talk) 20:36, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

text: Please note - I am against removing text (and it is mostly referenced) or columns of the table, but yes, if someone thinks that he can do it - a merge of the two tables may be good - columns: "appliaction number", "accession number", "state", "application" (date; for the initial 6 - start of negotiations/initial contacts for the first Treaty), "accession" (date), "result/status", "special territories". The last two may be show/hide type - or better all columns to be made with show/hide per column (and sort by button). Alinor (talk) 20:44, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a consensus, and the merge request tag linked to this talk page. Please discuss there if you disagree with the merge. No data is lost. - SSJ ☎ 15:01, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  two lists