The New European Union (Washington Post)

[JohnLocke]

The New European Union
By Katie McLeod -- Washington Post
Thursday, April 29, 2004
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(...)
The European Union will welcome 10 members: Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Malta and part of Cyprus. Only the Greek half of the island of Cyprus will join after Greek Cypriots defeated an April 24 referendum on a U.N.-backed unification plan for the island. Turkish Cypriots, who voted overwhelmingly for the unification plan, will be excluded for now. Negotiations for these countries to join the EU began in 1998 and culminated in Athens in 2003 when the accession treaties were signed.
The eastward expansion, the largest in history, will include eight former communist countries and will expand the EU from 15 to 25 countries. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who supports the expansion, said the move to include former members of the Eastern Bloc will end "the legacy of the Second World War and the Cold War."
(...)
Some EU countries are demanding moratoriums for the migration of labor. Germany and Austria established a seven-year moratorium. Britain has also imposed restrictions on foreign workers, even after initially calling for open borders along with Ireland. Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands also initally supported open borders, but that is no longer the case. Yet with the easing of border controls, there will inevitably be worker integration.
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Romania and Bulgaria are on course to join in 2007. Turkey is also a candidate for membership, however accession negotiations have not yet begun. The vote by the Turkish Cypriots to back the referendum to unify Cyprus should improve Turkey's chances for membership consideration, despite rejection of the unification plan by the Greek Cypriots. Croatia applied for membership in February 2003 and its application is under review by the European Commission.
EU membership is based on what is known as the 'Copenhagen criteria,' which says a country must be a stable democracy, exist with a functioning market economy and adopt EU rule of law.
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Read the rest here.

[larryepke]

1. Is Cyprus truly a stable democracy, etc.

I don't know, I'm just asking. Having only a portion of what was once a united country doesn't seem to fit the EU pattern. (Cyprus doesn't seem comparable to the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which split amicably.)

[Voice_of_Europe]

2. Cyprus / Turkey

The socalled greek but actually sovereign part of Cyprus does have a stable democracy and this status quo goes on for longer than the EU exists.
The EU wanted to give Cyprus a chance to join as a whole.

Now only the sovereign part of Cyprus will join.

The question wether Turkey will EVER join the EU is pretty open. The negotiations between EU and Turkey base mostly on US influence/pressure. The consense of most european people is that they don't feel like Turkey being a European country neither geographically nor culturally nor economically.

The Greece / Turkey line is traditionally the border of Europe since the crusader wars thousand years ago... and you can still feel that.