EU vote boosts Ukraine membership hopes
by George Parker in Brussels, Raphael Minder in Strasbourg and Tom Warner in Kiev
Financial Times, 13 January 2005
Ukraine’s long-term hopes of joining the European Union were boosted on Thursday when the European parliament voted overwhelmingly to open the door to possible membership. …
Although the parliament’s vote was non-binding, it was [...]

New Europe?Late Thursday night, the European Council approved, as widely expected, the Commission’s recommendation to open membership negotiations with Turkey, largely without imposing additional conditions to be met prior to the beginning of the talks on October 3, 2005. “The time to start negotiations with Turkey has come,” Commission President Jos? Manuel Barroso said. Council [...]

Maybe, just maybe, this will work out right. Positive signs abound. No major violence, police units going over to the people’s side, order among the throngs, volunteers bringing food, boots, whatever the people in the demonstrations need. Crowds in Kiev still in the hundreds of thousands. Miners in thrall to the government few and far [...]

It will probably still take some time until another EU referendum will be held in Norway, given the country’s history of rejecting membership in 1972 as well as in 1994. But a new opinion poll suggests that Norwegian membership-proponents have all reason to smile these days. The “yes”-camp is growing as previously undecided voters seem [...]

Despite the recent revival of optimism about the forthcoming Turkey negotiations following the apparent resolution of the ‘adultery ban’ issue, it is clear to everyone that significant hurdles still remain to be overcome. Among these may now need to be added a referendum on Turkish membership in France.
Turkey will not join the European Union for [...]

Not if people like single market commissioner Frits Bolkestein gets his way they aren’t. According to the FT the European Commission is expected to say on October 6 that Turkey has reformed enough for membership negotiations to begin. If this happens EU leaders will then decide in December whether to endorse those conclusions [...]