Accession Story

This book is a useful tool to anyone who is interested in the enlargement of the E.U., to the citizens of the ten acceded countries who would like to know how they managed to accede and also to officials of the new candidate countries, who are preparing their country for accession. The "Accession Story" provides a unique overview of the enlargement of the E.U. from 15 to 25 countries. It consists of two main parts.In the first part the then Director General of D.G. Enlargement, Mr. Eneko Landaburu, and Denmark's Permanent Representative in the E.U., Ambassador Poul Christoffersen, provides a comprehensive picture of the enlargement process from the beginning to the end, from the Brussels' point of view.The second part, written by the ten people responsible for negotiating the accession of their countries, presents the challenges, problems and difficulties each one of the ten countries had to overcome, in order to succeed to adopt the acquis communautaire and be accepted into the E.U.

the impressive team of contributors have served up a rich set of ingredients and hence provide an abundance of raw material for future conceptualization. Scholars not just of EU enlargement, but of the European Union more broadly, not only need to find space on their crowded shelves for The Accession Story, they need to read it.

George Vassiliou was elected President of the Republic of Cyprus in 1988 for a five-year term.During this period he worked hard to achieve a solution of the Cyprus problem and improved the functioning of the public sector. As a result of several reforms, the economy improved substantially, the GDP per capita nearly doubled and in 1991 Cyprus was able to apply for membership of the E.U. In 1992 it became possible to link the Cyprus pound to the ECU. One of his major achievements during this period was the establishment of the University of Cyprus.