The European Commission has formally opened the door to ten countries who have applied for EU membership: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia.
Yesterday's decision follows the successful conclusion of the accession negotiations at the European Council meeting in Copenhagen on December 13th last year, and finalisation of the Treaty of Accession earlier this month.
"For the Commission, the decision represents the crown on many years of intensive work" said Mr Günter Verheugen, Commissioner for Enlargement.
". . . It safeguards a smooth phasing-in of the new member states into the various policy areas that make up the EU while preserving its internal cohesion and dynamism."
The process began in June 1993 with applications for membership on behalf of Cyprus and Malta and in July 1997 for the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia.
The Commission has also provided the present and future member states, and the citizens of these countries, with an in-depth analysis in its yearly Regular Reports on the progress made by each of the candidate countries towards accession.
The most recent reports, adopted on October 9th last, concluded that the Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia fulfil the political criteria for membership and that they will have also fulfilled the economic criteria to be ready for membership from the beginning of 2004.
The Commission said in a statement that it was confident that the acceding states would pursue the reforms that need to be carried out in view of their accession, in line with the commitments they made during the negotiations.