UK Office of the European Parliament
[ Back to list of topics ]EU enlargement
The European Parliament's factsheet highlights the Union's objectives and some of the problems in expanding the Union to the East.
A large section of Europarl is devoted to the enlargement process, with links to texts adopted by the European Parliament on the issue as well as briefing papers, topical notes, check the Europarl site. Reference is also made to position of other EU institutions and the applicant countries on the enlargement proposals.
The European Commission's website also has approaches the enlargement with the Commission's own reports and policy statements -on Europa, with an introduction to the proposals, information on what has been negotiated, the pre-accession strategy, key documents, speeches, contacts and links. Also available on-line are the Commission's EU enlargement Strategy Paper and Regular Reports on Progress towards Accession by each of the candidate countries.
At Parliament's plenary meeting in Strasbourg (2-6 October 2000), the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence presented individual reports on progress made towards accession by the candidate countries. Direct links to their reports are included in the list below.
The European Commission has a website covering Agenda 2000 and the Phare Programme. The European Commission, through the Forward Studies Unit, has also financed a report on EU enlargement, which was the product of a joint research project set up in 1998 with the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University Institute (EUI), Florence.
For a deeper focus on current affairs in Eastern Europe, Central Europe Online presents regular news updates from countries such as the Czech Republic, Croatia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, among others. The weekly Central European Review (CER), a journal of Central and Eastern European politics, society and culture, provides comment and analysis on Central and East European affairs, press reviews, books and letters.
The European Policy Centre's web-site offers regular general on-line analysis on the EU.
[ Back to list of topics ]