Copenhagen Criteria - European Union Membership Criteria

European Union Membership Criteria

During the negotiations with each candidate country, progress towards meeting the Copenhagen criteria is regularly monitored. On the basis of this, decisions are made as to whether and when a particular country should join, or what actions need to be taken before joining is possible.

The European Union Membership criteria are defined by the three documents:

• The 1992 Treaty of Maastricht (Article 49)
• The declaration of the June 1993 European Council in Copenhagen, i.e., Copenhagen criteria—describing the general policy in more details
  • political
  • economic
  • legislative
• Framework for negotiations with a particular candidate state
  • specific and detailed conditions
  • statement stressing that the new member cannot take its place in the Union until it is considered that the EU itself has enough "absorption capacity" for this to happen.

When agreed in 1993, there was no mechanism for ensuring that any country which was already an EU member state was in compliance with these criteria. However, arrangements have now been put in place to police compliance with these criteria, following the "sanctions" imposed against the Austrian government of Wolfgang Schüssel in early 2000 by the other 14 Member States' governments. These arrangements came into effect on 1 February 2003 under the provisions of the Treaty of Nice.