The Copenhagen Criteria

The Copenhagen European Council held in June 1993 spelt out the conditions for EU membership known as the Copenhagen Criteria. These require that candidate countries have:

• stable institutions to guarantee democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities (political criterion);
• a functioning market economy and the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the EU's internal market (economic criterion);
• the ability to take on all the obligations of membership, i.e. the entire body of EU law and policy known as the acquis communautaire, and adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union (acquis criterion).

At the Luxembourg European Council in December 1997, it was decided that compliance with the political criterion agreed in Copenhagen was a prerequisite for the opening of any accession negotiations. By contrast, the economic criterion and the ability to fulfil all the obligations of membership (acquis criterion) were to be assessed in a "forward-looking, dynamic way".

The Union's capacity to absorb new members, while maintaining the momentum of European integration, is also an important consideration of both the Union and the candidate countries. The issue of the EU's absorption capacity is assuming ever greater importance as its membership grows and so it is a special focus of the Negotiating Frameworks for Turkey and Croatia and was emphasized in the European Council conclusions of 15/16 June 2006.