The EU comprises the following 27 countries, listed in order of the dates they joined.
1958 Belgium, France, (West) Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands
1973 Denmark, Ireland, UK
1981 Greece
1986 Portugal, Spain
1995 Austria, Finland, Sweden
2004 Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia
2007 Bulgaria, Romania
Future development of the EU
In addition to the current 27 member states, a number of other European states will join the European Union in the next two decades.
Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Turkey are officially candidate countries; Croatia and Turkey are currently in accession negotiations, although negotiations with the Republic of Macedonia have not yet started.
The remaining states in the Balkans - Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia & Montenegro (including Kosovo) - are officially "potential candidate countries", which means they have an outline for accession over the course of the next decade.
The next enlargement of the EU will, however, only happen after 2010, due to the European Union's need to sort out its institutional problems first.
In the future, a number of other countries could also be candidates to join. These include Norway, whose people have twice rejected membership (in 1972 and 1994), Switzerland, whose people also voted against in a referendum in 1992 and Greenland, which initially joined when under Danish rule and then withdrew in 1985 after becoming independent and holding a referendum.
Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine have stated that they would like to join. However, the EU's response was lukewarm at best. The island nation of Cape Verde, part of the island region Macaronesia (which is comprised of Cape Verde, the Portuguese islands of the Azores and Madeira and the Spanish Canary Islands) also wishes to join the EU. Membership is also the subject of political debate in Andorra, Azerbaijan, The Faroe Islands, Iceland and San Marino.
Belarus and Russia are seen as eligible to join, and while accession to the EU enjoys public support in Belarus, the lack of democratic structures makes these countries' accession impossible in the short term, especially as the EU is supporting the Belarussian opposition and civil society in peacefully overthrowing Alexander Lukashenko's regime, which it regards as dictatorial.
It is generally expected that the states of south-eastern Europe will be the next states to join the EU, and that it will still take some time for Iceland, Norway and Switzerland to join, since public opinion is not yet in favour. However, on 19 May 2006, the European Union's Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said that he expected Iceland to join the European Union before Croatia would.
Rights to work
If you are a national of an EU member state that was a part of the EU before May 1, 2004 (i.e. Luxemburg, Belgium, Germany, France, Sweden, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Netherlands, UK) you should normally be allowed to live and work in any other of these countries, though you will need a valid identity card or passport.
There are also no restrictions on workers from two of the newer EU member states, Cyprus and Malta.
At present, the Eastern European EU member states who joined in 2004 (Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary) have the right to live and work in Sweden, the UK, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Finland. The remaining old EU countries have kept restrictions in place that prevent new EU member state workers from easily working there. However, there are much more significant restrictions on workers from Bulgarian and Romania, with a number of measures, including a quota system (such as the UK is adopting) controlling economic migration in the short term.
EU nationals from old member states wishing to work in new EU member states will have to check with each country regarding their ability to work there. Some new member states have chosen to impose equivalent restrictions on the nationals of member states that have themselves imposed restrictions.
You are entitled to be recruited under the same conditions as nationals of the country in which you are seeking work. You cannot be asked to meet any additional requirements. This means that you can apply for any job vacancy advertised in any EU country, including public sector jobs. However, certain public service posts may be restricted to nationals of a particular country where the job in question involves safeguarding public order or the interests of the state.
Job seeking
If you are unemployed, you have the right to live in another EU country for a "reasonable period" of time in order to look for a job. In the absence of a specific definition of "reasonable period", most EU countries are now operating a six-month period, though you are advised to check the exact situation with the national authorities of the EU country in which you are looking for work. However, no matter how long you have to look for a job, you cannot be asked to leave the country if you can prove that you are genuinely looking for a job and that you have a real chance of finding one. For example, you still have interviews or tests to attend.
You can register at employment agencies and job centres without being resident in the country in which you wish to work and you will be given the same help to find work as nationals of that country. |
