Press Release: Towards the Enlarged Union – European Commission recommends conclusion of negotiations with ten candidate countries

The European Commission recommended on 9 October 2002 that the negotiations on accession to the European Union should be concluded by the end of this year with Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia. The Commission considers that these countries will be ready for membership from the beginning of 2004. As for Bulgaria and Romania, the Commission will strongly support these two countries in achieving their objective to join in 2007. Regarding Turkey, the Commission recommends that the EU should enhance its support for Turkey's pre-accession preparations and provide additional resources for this purpose. The findings and recommendations of the regular reports and the strategy paper adopted by the Commission will be examined by the European Council meeting in Brussels on 24-25 October 2002.

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/02/462&format=HTML&rapid=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/02/462&format=HTML&rapid=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/archives/key_documents/reports_2002_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/archives/key_documents/reports_2002_en.htm

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