Member state of the European Union

The European Union consists of 28 member states that include:

• Austria
• Belgium
• Bulgaria
• Croatia
• Cyprus
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Estonia
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Greece
• Hungary
• Ireland
• Italy
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Malta
• Netherlands
• Poland
• Portugal
• Romania
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sweden
• United Kingdom

All of the member states have de jure equal rights, de jure describes practices that are legally recognised, whether or not the practices exist in reality.

Membership of the European Union is open to any European country that is a stable, free-market liberal democracy that respects human rights and the rule of law. It has to be willing to accept all the obligations of membership, such as adopting all previously agreed law and switching to the euro.


EU's predecessor, the European Economic Community was founded in 1957 and it had only six core states - Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany.


Copenhagen criteria

Rules that define whether a country is eligible to join the European Union.
The criteria require that a state has human rights and the institutions to preserve democratic governance, accepts the obligations and intent of the EU, has a functioning market economy. To join the EU, the state must fulfil the Copenhagen criteria. For example, the youngest EU state is Croatia and it had to fulfil the economic and political requirements known as the Copenhagen criteria.