Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 46. Chapters: Enlargement of NATO, Enlargement of the European Union, Future enlargement of the European Union, Croatia-Slovenia border disputes, Commonwealth of Nations membership criteria, Enlargement of the African Union, Ukraine-NATO relations, Dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles, Enlargement of the United Nations, Copenhagen criteria, Georgia-NATO relations, Statistics relating to enlargement of the European Union, Accession of Montenegro to NATO, Suicide paragraph, Accession of Macedonia to NATO, Inner Six, Twinning institutional building tool, Enlargement of the Arab League, European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy, Tindemans group, Accession of Bosnia and Herzegovina to NATO, Individual Partnership Action Plan. Excerpt: The future enlargement of the European Union is theoretically open to any European country which is democratic, operates a free market and is willing and able to implement all previous European Union law. Past enlargement has brought membership from six to twenty-seven members since the foundation of the European Union (EU) as the European Coal and Steel Community by the Inner Six in 1952. The accession criteria are included in the Copenhagen criteria, agreed in 1993, and the Treaty of Maastricht (Article 49). Whether a country is European or not is a subject to political assessment by the EU institutions. At present, there are five recognised candidates for membership: Montenegro (applied 2008), Croatia (applied 2003), Iceland (applied 2009), Macedonia (applied 2004) and Turkey (applied 1987). Macedonia and Montenegro have not yet started negotiations to join. The other states in the Western Balkans - Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia - have signed Stabilisation and Association Agreements (SAA) with the EU, which generally precede the lodging of membership appli...