The accession of a country to the EU is governed by Article 49 of the treaty on the European Union.
The minutely detailed and time-consuming process requires adequate preparation from the applicant country and depends on the EU’s capacity to integrate a new member. Hence, there is a pre-accession period followed by an accession period consisting of four significant steps.
During the pre-accession period, the candidate country makes necessary modifications in its institutions, standards, and infrastructure to satisfy the criteria. Since the EU rules and regulations are enormous in magnitude, negotiations take considerable time to complete. The candidates are supported financially, administratively, and technically during this pre-accession period.
As mentioned, the accession process consists of four basic steps: application, candidate status, negotiations, and, finally, accession.
Any European country that feels it complies with the membership criteria, can apply to be an EU member. The Commission is then asked by the EU General Affairs Council (GAC) to assess whether or not that country meets the criteria. If they don’t, steps are recommended that need to be taken to do so. If a country does meet the criteria, the Commission recommends the GAC for approval and granting of official candidate status. The European Council subsequently endorses this decision, and the country officially becomes a candidate for EU membership.
Acquiring the status of an official candidate for the membership is a major step. After that the Commission negotiates with the candidate country. When the negotiations are successfully done, the Commission recommends the candidate country for membership. The member states and the newly joining country now sign the Treaty of Accession, which needs approval by the European Parliament and the Council. The national parliament of each EU member state should approve it, too.
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