ABSTRACT
After successfully deepening European integration from the mid-1980s onwards around the Internal Market programme, institutionalized in the Single European Act (SEA) in 1987, and Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), part of the Treaty of Maastricht in 1991, the agenda of the European Union (EU) in the 1990s was then dominated by the issue of enlargement. In 1993 and 1994, negotiations were conducted with the four European Free Trade Area (EFTA) countries Austria, Sweden, Finland and Norway, leading to the accession of the first three to the EU on 1 January 1995. Already during these negotiations, it became apparent that the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs), suddenly able to conduct their own foreign policy after the end of the Cold War, also wanted to become EU members. In May 2004, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, as well as the Mediterranean countries Cyprus and Malta, joined the EU. Currently, the Union is negotiating only with Bulgaria and Romania. Croatia and Turkey are waiting to open accession negotiations .
