Eu27
 

Just thought I'd extend my congratulations to those forum members who just became EU citizens less than a week ago. Even though I'm not European, I feel very happy for the EU and hope Bulgaria and Romania will be able to quickly catch up with the rest of the Union. Long Live EU27! (Well, till the next enlargement :))

If anyone has any accession-related pictures, including New Year's celebrations, please post them here.

Croatia is next in 2009, Iceland also might join along with Croatia.

Ehm, hate to break it to you but Iceland hasn't even applied for membership, or for that matter indicated that it wants to join the EU anytime soon.

Fact of the matter is that no country will join until the constitutional issue is resolved. According to Merkel some sort of agreement should be reached by 09 (ie by the time the next European elections roll around). Croatia will probably join soon afterwards.

yeah, Iceland is still far off. I can honestly not see them joining before Norway. But if/when Norway join and Scandinavia adopts the € Iceland will probably not be far behind :)

As for the need to reolve the constitutional stuff first, I totally agree with that and it needs to be done even if we'd still been 25 member states.

If Norway joins, Iceland will at the same time.

And then obviously, they will be obliged to join the euro, thereby giving the EU a big slice of the oil based currency market.

The future's bright, the future's Europe..

Nope - the future is the Nordic Union!


And we ain't gonna share our oil with you guys! :D

The UK doesn't share its oil with the EU either. I was simply saying that if Norwegian Oil was priced in euros, it would give the currency a boost.

That's a pretty big if though.

Not really, I predict within the next 10 year Norway will join

10 years is a bit short, but I wouldn't bet against it. All the oil money is making Norway feel it's doin' alright without membership. But as it is they have to follow almost all the rules and can't partake in deciding...
Norway staying outside even today is to me not so smart. If the referendum there had gone just a bit diffrent they'd have been members for over 10 years already - and Iceland might have been part of the recent expansions.

Norway will not be member of EU as long as ve vote no which has increased the last years... :)

I remembe reading somewhere a couple of months ago that the yes side was actually ahead (must have been a surprising surge or something).

pitty Norway is not in, I feel as if something is missing in EU.

As to Iceland I think guy for enlargement said Iceland will most likely join EU along with Croatia in 2009/10. It is up to Icelandic ppl if they wish to join but EU doors are open for them if they decide to join.

On a not so good note, in Croatia, support for EU membership fell to low 37%.
Many question economic benefits of such membership.

When it comes to Iceland, Norway and Switzerland it realy is just up to if the people want to join or not. Their economies and laws are already mostly up to EU standards. Croatia isn't quite there yet, but clearly on its way to such a point. As i understand it the main reason Croatians have been somewhat anti-EU (at least in the past) is that the EU demanded all war crimes suspects be handed over for prosecution unless membership negotiations were to be halted.

There is a part of me that now thinks the changes required for full EU membership are simply too great for a population to think worthwhile. We need to develop a 'road to membership' in which national governments can slowly become full members. Say for example a country could become a member that participates in the CAP first, then bit by bit expand to become a member for trade, then for the single currency and so on. This way its easier for states to implement EU law.

to some degree this was the case, but with the arrest of Ante Gotiovina *(war criminal wanted by Hague) in late 2005 all doors for Croatia's EU entry opend.

But dissolution in some Central European countries (Poland, Czech R) created a discord at home.

Unemployment in Poland remained the same despite ever increasing investment in the country.

Croatia is going through high economic growth rates and fear is that EU bureaucracy could stifled growth, Croats want benefit of trade but the ever increasing legislative pressure EU imposes on member states.

There is a issue of fishing rights in Adriatic, Which Croatia wants to protect, issue of foreigners buying out Croatia. Croatia being highly desired tourist destination many in Croatia fear that Germans, Italians and others will simply buy out land, keeping prices high and out of reach of many Croats.

But I think closer Croatia approches its EU membership date % of population supporting EU membership will undoubtedly increase.

Croatia is joining NATO next year and support for this is eve lower, around 34%, many see NATO as Americanization of Europe and tool to influence and blackmail European members.

EU will be of much greater importance for Croatia and I do hope support for EU increases once they see opportunities EU can offer.

Iceland in the other hand same as Norway has no practical obstacles in joining EU, apart of majority NO vote at the referendum for a EU membership.

I can see the reasons for Norway saying no, after all Norway might loose a lot with the membership, such as control of North Sea Oil, fishing rights and considering Norway is a whaling nation...

Iceland in the other hand has large fishing industry up on which is very dependant but I think Iceland also needs to diversify and EU might be just what Iceland needs.

Some of us have the decency to vote yes..

We'll join eventually, we're just a bit slow.. We're already paying members, only we don't have a say in what goes on.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...andinavism.jpg


I'd much rather be part of a bigger community though, and stop "navel gazing" as we call it here :)

I'm glad you do.

So, are there votes on a regular basis ?
Is another one planned in the near future ?

Unemployment in Poland's dropped continuously and their growth rates have been incredible over the past couple of years. Economic Growth in the Baltic countries has certainly not been hampered by EU membership either.

Oh, we have referendums on a weekly basis. The government is quite keen for us to join so they can mingle with all the big shots in Brussels and have a chance of getting a better paying job there, so their hope is that eventually enough of the nay-sayers will not have the time to vote, and then there's no turning back.

Edit: If you in fact weren't being ironic; no, there were referendums in 1972 and in 1994, where "no" was just above 50% AFAIK. There's no plans for another referendum very soon, unfortunately.