Copenhagen criteria

The Copenhagen criteria are the rules that define whether a country is eligible to join the European Union. In 1993, the Copenhagen European Council identified the economic and political requirements candidate countries will need to fulfil to join the EU. It also concluded that accession could take place as soon as they were capable of fulfilling them. The criteria are: - the political criteria: stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and respect for and protection of minorities; - the economic criteria: the existence of a functioning market economy as well as the capacity to cope with competitive pressures and market forces within the Union; - the institutional criteria: the ability to take on the obligations of membership including adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union. It includes the whole range of policies and measures that constitute the acquis of the Union that candidate countries must adopt, implement and enforce. This requires the administrative capacity to transpose European Community legislation into national law, to implement it and to effectively enforce it through appropriate administrative and judicial structures. The EU was created in 92 and the members who created Copenhagen criteria for the new members so the market will be more stable and powerfull but they cheat their numbers because as we can see today with the problems of Greece Ireland spain they didnt meet the criteria.

http://ec.europa.eu/romania/documents/eu_romania/tema_25.pdf