ABSTRACT
Enlargement has been a permanent item on the agenda of the European Union (EU). Since its creation the EU has had no fewer than six enlargement waves, changing its size from six through nine, 10, 12, 15, 25, up to 27 member states. Nevertheless, only in the last two decades did enlargement become a really ‘hot’ policy due to the two enlargement rounds of 2004 and 2007. These saw 10 former communist Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) and two Mediterranean states (Cyprus and Malta), most of them largely falling behind the EU-15 in political and economic terms, join the EU. In the near future enlargement is likely to stay on the EU agenda as new candidate countries, such as Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and Turkey, are already preparing for membership. On top of these, the remaining countries located in the Western Balkans (Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Albania), currently enjoying Stabilisation and Association Agreements (SAAs) with the EU, are queuing up for membership. Last, but not least, former Soviet states such as Ukraine and Georgia, lying at the (south-)eastern borders of the enlarged EU, and at present subject to the EU neighbourhood policy, have already expressed their wish to become part of the EU, although the neighbourhood policy as such seems to exclude this prospect.
