Those responsible for the European Union (EU) in charge of General Affairs will meet on Tuesday, in Brussels, to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the last major enlargement of the community bloc, in 2004, the year in which ten member states joined.
The informal meeting, in which the Secretary of State for European Affairs, Inês Domingos, participates, includes – in a working breakfast on the rule of law in the context of enlargement – the presence of representatives from ten Member States that currently aspire to join the block.
At the meeting, special attention will be paid to the need to strengthen the EU and its set of instruments, particularly in the field of the rule of law and the rule of law, with an exchange of information on possible improvements and measures relating to existing mechanisms and the its effectiveness.
The representatives of Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, which are officially candidate countries for accession, are joined by those of Kosovo, which submitted the request in 2022, but whose independence it is not recognized by five EU Member States (Spain, Romania, Greece, Slovakia and Cyprus).
This new format, according to a statement from Brussels, highlights the EU’s close partnership with these countries with a European perspective.
On May 1, 2004, ten new member states entered the bloc: Cyprus, Malta, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Czech Republic and Slovenia.
Later, Bulgaria and Romania also joined in 2007, and Croatia in 2013, with the United Kingdom leaving the EU in 2020, which currently has 27 member states.
Portugal has belonged to the EU since June 12, 1985.
Tags: celebrates enlargement Tuesday presence candidate countries
