In 1993 The Copenhagen European Council marks the decisive change in the enlargement perspective.
In order to join the Union, new member states need to fulfil the economic and political conditions known as the "Copenhagen criteria", according to which a prospective member must: have a stabla democracy, respecting human rights, the rule of law, the protection of minorities, have a functioning market economy, adopt the common rules, standards and policies that make up the body of EU law.
"Enlargement is one of the most important opportunities for the European Union at the beginning of the 21 st century. It is a unique, historic task to further the integration of the continent by peaceful means, extending a zone of stability and prosperity to new members". In addition to this we can define enlargement as the process of extension of the number of states that belong to the European Union, which hasn't stopped yet; as a matter of fact it finds now a new direction towards the Mediterrean area.
The European Union can already look back on a history of successful enlargements.
The Treaties of Paris (1951) establishing the Europen Coal and Steel Community and Rome establishing the European Economic Community and the EURATOM, were signed by six founding members: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands. The European Union underwent four successive enlargements.
The benefits of enlarging the Union to include new members are political, economic and cultural:
- the extension of the zone of peace, stability and prosperity in Europe will enhance the security of all its peoples;
- there will be a better quality of life for citizens throughout Europe as the new members adopt EU policies for protection of the environment and the fight aginst crime, drugs and illegal immigration;
- the new arrivals will enrich EU through increased cultural diversity, interchange of ideas and better understanding of other peoples;
- enlargement will strenghten the Union's role in world affairs.
Benefits are already visible. In Central and Eastern Europe, stable democracies have emerged, with democratic institutions and increased respect for minorities.
This process has been helped and encouraged by the prospect of EU membership and by EU's financial assistance.
As a result the Union enjoys growing trade whit these countries and this generates employment and growth in member states.
To achieve these benefits, the conditions for a successful enlargement must be respected: the future members need to fulfil all the criteria for membership and the Union needs to prepare itself to receive them.
Enlargement, if well conducted, will bring major benefits both to the existing Union and to the acceding countries.
I considered the data collected about the third question which deals with European citizenship. From the analysis it appears that the knowledge about that theme is rather superficial, because on a total number of 55 interviews, 7 people do not know anything about the issue, 36 of the show only superficial knowledge, 9 have a reasonable level of information and only 3 people seem to know the problem's details.
It may be interesting to wonder why young people are so little informed. In order to try ang give an answer to the question it is possible to consider 3 aspects:
- probably young are less interestd in political problems than in different matters;
- probably they read very little;
- the European Union is not generally a school subject.
In my opinion citizenship can be defined as a legal and political status which allows the citizen to acquire some rights as an individual and some duties.