Péter Balázs

General Conclusion: Towards a Pan-Euro-Mediterranean Regional Integration — Motivation and Objectives

In parallel with its fundamental and strategic political decisions to embark upon eastern enlargement, the European Union has taken decisive steps to reinforce its relations with the Mediterranean. At the 1994 Essen Summit, the EU sent a message to the so-called transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe about the possibility of their accession to the European Union. The internal compromise of the EU concerning the selection of the potential applicant countries was not at all easy because of the diverging preferences of the Member States. Consequently, the message of the Essen Summit took the form of a ‘political puzzle’. As a first step, the Union confirmed its willingness to accept as new members all those Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) ‘which [had] concluded an association agreement with the EU’.1 The same text expressed the wish of the EU Member States to conclude such agreements also with the three Baltic states and with Slovenia.2 However, the document in question did not give a complete list of countries having a Europe Agreement, and only one of the Annexes mentioned ‘the four associated countries … and Romania and Bulgaria’.3 Adding four more CEECs to the — then — six associated CEECs has brought the applicants to ten in all.4 Since then, the number has not changed and in March 1998 the accession process began with all ten.