European Union Enlargement To Take Place By June 2004

MaltaMedia

19 June 2001

This story is reproduced by kind permission of MaltaMedia at: http://www.maltamedia.com

The European Union leaders agreed that the next enlargement is to take place by June 2004. They also agreed that the candidate countries with an advanced level of negotiations have to close these negotiations until the end of next year.

This came out of the EU summit that was held at the Swedish city of Gothenburg. The EU’s enlargement was the top item on the agenda of this summit. The top government officials of the 15 member states took part while leaders of the countries that have applied for EU membership, including Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami, were also invited to the summit.

Therefore the next enlargement will take place between January 2003 and June 2004 so that the new member states will be able to vote in the election for a new EU parliament in June 2004.

Throughout the Summit on Friday, EU leaders tried to downplay the result and effect of the Irish people’s ‘No’ vote to the Nice Treaty, in a referendum held last week

Malta is at an advanced state of negotiations. In the last few days, negotiations were opened on two more chapters while another chapter will be opened later this month, before the end of the Swedish Presidency. That leaves only one chapter to be opened for negotiations, which will be dealt with under Belgian Presidency.

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