EU embarks on expansion
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LONDON, England (CNN) -- Europe is in the midst of a period of dramatic growth.
Ten nations joined the European Union on May 1, including eight former communist states. Two more are expected to join in 2007, and a review of Turkey's application will be made in December.
By the end of the decade, the EU's land mass may have grown by a third and its population swelled by more than 100 million to almost half a billion.
The European community has expanded four times in the half century since six core nations -- Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands -- agreed to place their coal and steel production under a single supranational authority in 1951.
Until now, however, expansion has been an incremental affair. In previous enlargements -- 1973, 1981, 1986 and 1995 -- the union took on just three, one, two and three new members, respectively.
The 10 states that joined on May 1 are Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Malta and Cyprus. Together, they increased the EU's population by 20 percent to 450 million.
First and second waves
Negotiations with the leading wave of candidates -- the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia and Estonia -- began in March 1998.
The mostly ex-communist front-runners originally targeted an entry date of January 2003 -- the time they said their institutions and markets would be ready for the rough-and-tumble of the EU's free market. But analysts say this timetable was overly optimistic.
To join, would-be members have to bring their national laws into conformity with the union's strict criteria on everything from human rights to the environment and ensure that the political mood does not sour on accession.
A second group of aspirants -- Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, the Slovak Republic and Malta -- began negotiations in February 2000.
In October 2002 the European Commission gave its verdict.
In 2004 it would admit 10 of the 13 applicants -- not including Turkey. An EC report said Turkey met political and economic membership criteria but needed to clean up its human rights record.
Romania and Bulgaria -- which faced greater difficulty than some of their eastern neighbors in tackling economic, political and social issues after years under communist rule -- were given a date of 2007.
At a European summit in Copenhagen in December 2002, it was formally agreed to admit the 10 newcomers in May 2004. A much-disappointed Turkey was told its case would be reviewed in December 2004 and that entry talks could begin shortly afterwards if there had been significant improvements in the country's human rights record and treatment of its Kurdish minority.
Fears and hurdles
The road to accession is strewn with logistical hurdles as most EU institutions were designed for a smaller, cozier club.
Accommodating the newcomers means a wholesale rethinking of issues ranging from the size of the decision-making commission, to how to weigh and allocate votes and what procedure to follow when tallying those votes.
EU membership also means instant access to one of the world's most competitive marketplaces. And for some EU leaders, the benefits of taking on new members are not clear-cut.
Those who have opposed enlargement cite fears about the impact of cheap labor and goods from new members' markets, as well as a reluctance to shoulder the added budgetary burden of an expanded Europe.
The prospect of membership, however, carries enormous symbolic weight for many of the new members, many of whom were cut off from the European Union for decades by the Iron Curtain.
