The EU started in 1952 as the European Communities with six founding members: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and Netherlands. The first enlargement took part in 1973 when Denmark, Ireland and the UK joined.
In the 1980s, Greece joined in 1981, followed by Spain and Portugal five years later after emerging from dictatorships in the 1970s. In 1985 Greenland, which is an autonomous part of Denmark with a local government responsible for judicial affairs, policing and natural resources, became the first territory to leave the EU.
The fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union changed everything again. In 1995 Austria, Finland and Sweden joined the EU. This was followed by two waves of Central and Eastern European countries joining. The Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia as well as Cyprus and Malta joined in 2004. In 2007, it was the turn of Bulgaria and Romania.
Croatia became the most recent country to join the EU in 2013. Meanwhile, the UK left the EU in 2020.
Source link : https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20180126STO94113/enlargement-how-do-countries-join-the-eu
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Publish date : 2024-06-26 07:00:00
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