Future enlargement of the European Union




There are five recognised candidates for future membership of the European Union: Turkey, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, and Serbia. All 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 with the EU, which generally precedes the lodging of membership application. Serbia and Montenegro, the most advanced candidates, are both expected to join no earlier than 2022, with 2025 being more likely. 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 of the Maastricht Treaty 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 since the foundation of the European Union as the European Economic Community by the Inner Six states in 1958 brought total membership of the EU to twenty-eight, although as a result of the withdrawal of the United Kingdom, the current number of EU member states is twenty-seven.
Of the four major western European countries that are not EU members, Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland have submitted membership applications in the past but subsequently frozen them, while the United Kingdom is a former member. Currently, all four, along with Liechtenstein, participate in the EU Single Market. All but the UK also participate in the Schengen Area, which makes them closely aligned with the EU. 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.

Current agenda

The present enlargement agenda of the European Union regards Turkey and the Western Balkan states of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia. These states must negotiate the terms of their EU accession with the current member states, and align their domestic legislation with EU law before joining.
Turkey has a long-standing application with the EU, but their accession negotiations have stalled since 2016. This is due to the political issues surrounding the accession of the country. As for the Western Balkan states, the EU had pledged to include them after their civil wars: in fact, two states have entered, four are candidates, and the remaining two have pre-accession agreements.
There are other states in Europe that either seek membership, or could potentially apply if their present foreign policy changes, or the EU gives a signal that they might now be included on the enlargement agenda. However, these are not formally part of the current agenda, which is already delayed due to bilateral disputes in the Balkans and difficulty in fully implementing the acquis communautaire.
In 2005, the European Commission suggested in a strategy paper that the present enlargement agenda could potentially block the possibility of a future accession of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. Olli Rehn has said on occasion that the EU should "avoid overstretching our capacity, and instead consolidate our enlargement agenda," adding, "this is already a challenging agenda for our accession process."
It was previously the norm for enlargements to see multiple entrants join the Union at once. The only previous enlargements of a single state were the 1981 admission of Greece and the 2013 admission of Croatia.
However, the EU members have warned that, following the significant impact of the fifth enlargement in 2004, a more individual approach will be adopted in the future, although the entry of pairs or small groups of countries will most probably coincide.

Western Balkans

The 2003 European Council summit in Thessaloniki set integration of the Western Balkans as a priority of EU expansion. This commitment was made in order to stabilise the region in the wake of the Yugoslav Wars, a series of civil wars through the 1990s that led to the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Slovenia, the first former Yugoslav country to obtain independence, joined the EU in 2004, followed by Croatia in 2013.
Albania, Serbia, North Macedonia, and Montenegro are all candidate states, and all of them are in negotiations. Bosnia and Herzegovina has applied to join but is not yet recognised as a candidate while Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008, is not recognised by all EU states, or Serbia.
Serbia and Montenegro could join the European Union in 2025. The European Council endorsed starting negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania on 26 March 2020, and they could join after 2025.

Turkey

Turkey's candidacy to join the EU has been a matter of major significance and considerable controversy since it was granted in 1999. Turkey has had historically close ties with the EU, having an association agreement since 1964, being in a customs union with the EU since 1995 and initially applying to join in 1987. Only after a summit in Brussels on 17 December 2004, the European Council announced that membership negotiations with Turkey were officially opened on 3 October 2005.
Turkey is the thirteenth largest economy in the world, and is a key regional power. In 2006, Carl Bildt, Swedish foreign minister, stated that " would give the EU a decisive role for stability in the Eastern part of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, which is clearly in the strategic interest of Europe."
However others, such as former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, maintain an opposition to Turkey's membership. Opponents argue that Turkey does not respect the key principles that are expected in a liberal democracy, such as the freedom of expression. Turkey's large population would also alter the balance of power in the representative European institutions. Upon joining the EU, Turkey's 83 million inhabitants would bestow it the second largest number of MEPs in the European Parliament. Demographic projections indicate that Turkey would surpass Germany in the number of seats by 2020. Turkey also does not recognise one EU state, Cyprus, over the Cyprus dispute and the Cypriot government blocks some chapters of Turkey's talks.
Turkey's relations with the EU have seriously deteriorated in the aftermath of the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt and subsequent purges. On 24 November 2016 the European Parliament approved a non-binding resolution calling for the "temporary freeze of the ongoing accession negotiations with Turkey" over human rights and rule of law concerns. On 13 December, the European Council resolved that it would open no new areas in Turkey's membership talks in the "prevailing circumstances", as Turkey's path toward autocratic rule made progress on EU accession impossible. As of 2017, and especially following Erdoğan's victory in the constitutional referendum, Turkish accession talks are effectively at a standstill.

Summary table

Status

States not on the agenda

The Maastricht Treaty states that any European country that is committed to democracy may apply for membership in the European Union. In addition to European states, other countries have also been speculated or proposed as future members of the EU.
States in western Europe who have chosen, for various reasons, not to become full members of the EU have integrated with it to different extents according to their circumstances. Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein participate directly in the single market via the European Economic Area, Switzerland does so via bilateral treaties and the other European microstates have specific agreements with the EU and neighbouring countries, including their use of the euro as their currency. Most of these countries are also part of the Schengen Area. While this integration is designed as a substitute for full membership, there are ongoing debates in a number of these countries as to whether they should join as full members. Three have all previously had live applications to join the EU which have been withdrawn or otherwise frozen. Such applications could be resubmitted in the event of a change in the political landscape.
Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine ratified an Association Agreement with the EU and the European Parliament passed a resolution in 2014 stating that "in accordance with Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, as well as any other European country, have a European perspective and can apply for EU membership in compliance with the principles of democracy, respect for fundamental freedoms and human rights, minority rights and ensuring the rule of rights."
They also entered the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area with the EU, that creates "framework for modernising trade relations and for economic development by the opening of markets via the progressive removal of customs tariffs and quotas, and by an extensive harmonisation of laws, norms and regulations in various trade-related sectors, creating the conditions for aligning key sectors" of their economies with EU standards. However, the EU did not expand further into the post-Soviet space in the 2010s.
Internal enlargement is the process of new member states arising from the break-up of or secession from an existing member state. There have been and are a number of active separatist movements within member states but there are no clear agreements, treaties or precedents covering the scenario of an existing EU member state breaking into two or more states, both of which wish to remain EU member states. The question is whether one state is a successor and one a new applicant or, alternatively, both are new states which must be admitted to the EU.
In some cases, a region desires to leave its state and the EU, namely those regions wishing to join Switzerland. But most, namely the two movements who have had referendums within the 2010s, Scotland and Catalonia, see their future as independent states within the EU. This results in great interest on whether, once independent, they would retain EU membership or conversely whether they would have to re-apply. In the later case, since new members must be approved unanimously, any other state which has an interest in blocking their membership to deter similar independence movements could do so. Additionally, it is unclear whether the successor state would retain any opt-outs that the parent state was entitled to.
;Opinions on membership
The Scottish Independence Referendum of 2014 was the first occasion the EU was faced with the potential breakup of a member state, and one where a newly independent state wished to retain its EU membership. While the UK's withdrawal from the EU also took Scotland out of the EU, the debates in the referendum campaign may inform other future scenarios.

Catalonia

On 1 October 2017, the Catalan government held a referendum on independence, which had been declared illegal by the Constitutional Court of Spain, with potential polling stations being cordoned off by riot police. The subsequent events constituted a political crisis for Catalonia. The EU's position is to keep distance from the crisis while supporting Spain's territorial integrity and constitution. While the debate around Scotland's referendum may inform the Catalan crisis, Catalonia is in a distinct situation from Scotland whereby the central government does not recognise the legitimacy of any independence declaration from Catalonia. If Spain does not recognise the independence of a Catalan state, Catalonia cannot separately join the EU and it is still recognised as part of Spain's EU membership.

Flanders

There is an active movement towards Flemish independence, or union with the Netherlands, with the future status of Wallonia and Brussels unclear as viable political states, perhaps producing a unique situation from Scotland and Catalonia. There are various proposals for what should happen to the city, ranging from staying part of the Belgian rump state, to joining the hypothetical Flemish state, to becoming a separate political entity.

Member state expansion

Cyprus

Officially, the island nation of Cyprus is part of the European Union, under the de jure sovereignty of the Republic of Cyprus. Turkish Cypriots are citizens of the Republic of Cyprus and thus of the European Union, and were entitled to vote in the 2004 European Parliament election. The EU's acquis communautaire is suspended indefinitely in the northern third of the island, which has remained outside the control of the Republic of Cyprus since the Turkish invasion of 1974. The Greek Cypriot community rejected the Annan Plan for the settlement of the Cyprus dispute in a referendum on 24 April 2004. Had the referendum been in favour of the settlement proposal, the island would have joined the European Union as the United Cyprus Republic. The European Union's relations with the Turkish Cypriot Community are handled by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Enlargement.

Ireland

The European Council has recognized that following the UK withdrawal from the EU, if Northern Ireland were to be incorporated into the Republic of Ireland to form a united Ireland it would automatically rejoin the EU under Ireland's membership. This is consistent with the incorporation of East Germany into the Federal Republic of Germany as a single European Communities member state.

Romania

A similar scenario has been envisioned with the unification of Romania and Moldova, which would incorporate the current territory of Moldova into Romania and thus into the EU.

Special territories of member states

There are multiple Special member state territories, some of them are not fully covered by the EU treaties and apply EU law only partially, if at all. It is possible for a dependency to change its status regarding the EU or some particular treaty or law provision. The territory may change its status from participation to leaving or from being outside to joining.

Danish self-governing communities

The Faroe Islands, a self-governing nation within the Kingdom of Denmark, are not part of the EU, as explicitly asserted by both Rome treaties. The relations with the EU are governed by a Fisheries Agreement and a Free Trade Agreement. The main reason for remaining outside the EU is disagreements about the Common Fisheries Policy, which disfavours countries with large fish resources. Also, every member has to pay for the Common Agricultural Policy, which favours countries having much agriculture which the Faroe Islands does not. When Iceland was in membership negotiations around 2010, there was a hope of better conditions for fish-rich countries, but this came to nothing. The Common Fisheries Policy was introduced in 1970 for the very reason of getting access for the first EC members into waters of candidate countries, UK, Ireland and Denmark with the Faroe Islands.
Nevertheless, there are politicians, mainly in the right-wing Union Party, led by their chairman Kaj Leo Johannesen, who would like to see the Faroes as a member of the EU. However, the chairman of the left-wing Republic, Høgni Hoydal, has expressed concerns that if the Faroes were to join the EU as is, they might vanish inside the EU, comparing this with the situation of the Shetland Islands and Åland today, and wants the local government to solve the political situation between the Faroes and Denmark first.
Greenland, a self-governing community that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, entered the EC with Denmark in 1973, because it was not autonomous at that time. After the establishment of Greenland's home rule in 1979, it held a second referendum on membership. The result was to leave, so on 1 February 1985, Greenland left the EEC and EURATOM. Its status was changed to that of an Overseas Country. Danish nationals residing in Greenland are nonetheless fully European citizens; they are not, however, entitled to vote in European elections.
There has been some speculation as to whether Greenland may consider rejoining the European Union. On 4 January 2007 the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten quoted the former Danish minister for Greenland, Tom Høyem, as saying "I would not be surprised if Greenland again becomes a member of the EU... The EU needs the Arctic window and Greenland cannot alone manage the gigantic Arctic possibilities". Greenland has a lot of natural resources, and Greenland has, especially during the 2000s commodities boom, contracted private companies to exploit some of them, but the cost is considered too high, as Greenland is remote and severely lacks infrastructure. After 2013 prices have declined so such efforts have stalled.
The Brexit debate has reignited talk about the EU in Greenland, and there have been calls for the island to rejoin the Union.

Dutch constituent countries and special municipalities

The islands of Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten are constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, while Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba are special Dutch municipalities. All are Overseas Countries and Territories under Annex II of the EC treaty. OCTs are considered to be "associated" with the EU and apply some portions of EU law. The islands are opting to become an Outermost Region of the EU, the same status the Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands and the French overseas departments have.
When Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba were established as Dutch public bodies after the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles in 2010, their status within the EU were raised. Rather than change their status from an OCT to an outermost region, as their change in status within the Netherlands would imply, it was decided that their status would remain the same for at least five years. After those five years, their status would be reviewed.
If it was decided that one or all of the islands wish to integrate more with the EU then the Treaty of Lisbon provides for that following a unanimous decision from the European Council. Former European Commissioner for Enlargement Danuta Hübner has said before the European Parliament that she does not expect many problems to occur with such a status change, as the population of the islands is only a few thousand people.

French overseas departments and territories

The territories of French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte and Réunion are overseas departments of France and at the same time mono-departmental overseas regions. According to the EC treaty, all of these departments are outermost regions of the EU—hence provisions of the EC treaty apply there while derogations are allowed. The status of the Overseas collectivity of Saint-Martin is also defined as OMR by the Treaty of Lisbon. New Caledonia and the overseas collectivities of French Polynesia, Saint-Barthelemy, Saint Pierre et Miquelon and Wallis and Futuna are Overseas Countries and Territories of the EU.
New Caledonia is an overseas territory of France with its own unique status under the French Constitution, which is distinct from that of overseas departments and collectivities. It is defined as an "overseas country" under the 1998 Nouméa Accord, and enjoys a high degree of self-government. Currently, in regard to the EU, it is one of the Overseas Countries and Territories.
As a result of the Nouméa Accord, New Caledonians voted on an independence referendum in November 2018. This referendum was to determine whether the territory would remain a part of the French Republic as a "sui generis collectivity", or whether it would become an independent state. The accords also specify a gradual devolution of powers to the local New Caledonian assembly. The referendum's result was that New Caledonia would remain a part of the French Republic.