How far can the EU expand?

[Gangerolf]

Well it's not a 100% settled yet, but 10 new countries will join next year. Bulgaria and Romania are more or less promised membership in a couple of years too. Turkey has candidate status but hasn't been promised anything.

So when/where will the cancer that is the EU stop spreading??

[Combat Ingrid]

Voted for all except the African countries and Israel, but I forgot to include Bananaland

[Gangerolf]

Do you exclude the Africans based on geography? I don't think the economy of the North African countries is any worse than the Caucasus countries' for instance.
Israel, while having a decent economy, has some other "issues" to deal with..

[Drogue]

If you mean how far will/can it go, I agree with Combat. However I'd like Norway, Switzerland and Iceland to join and then stop. Having many poorer nations join simply means we'll end up giving money to them.

Having said that, I'm all for the free trade area to be expanded as far as possible. Just not the political aspect of it.

[Spiffor]

Where is "the whole world except Turkey" option?

[Q Classic]

if turkey is invited, even though they are in asia and not europe, we should allow china, japan, and korea to join the eu.

[Combat Ingrid]

@Spiffor

Gangerolf, I would exclude the African states not just for geography, but because they have serious social issues. That combined with relatively large, poor, and quickly growing populations is not a good thing in my book. If they solve these issues and become stabile democracies, I don't have any problem with them joining EU.

But as I said in the other thread, Norway and Russia (with their issues solved) are those I would like the most to join EU.

[Gangerolf]

What's Norway's issues? It's adopted tons of EU legislation due to the EEA treaty, and probably enforces it more rigid than most EU members. The only issues I can think of is that none of the political parties have the guts to revive the EU debate.

[Combat Ingrid]

I meant Russia's issues. Norway is doing fine

[C0ckney]

i'd exclude most of them, seeing as the treaties say that only democracies which respect human rights are allowed in...

[Gangerolf]

Oh. Yes, Russia has some issues. First of all, it's big as hell. And then there's Chechniya (spelling?).

BTW, don't the former Soviets (except the Baltics) have a union thing of their own going on? The CIS? I must admit I don't know much about it or in what way it compares to the EU.

[Combat Ingrid]

Originally posted by Gangerolf
BTW, don't the former Soviets (except the Baltics) have a union thing of their own going on? The CIS? I must admit I don't know much about it or in what way it compares to the EU.

I don't know much about CIS either. My impressions are:
1. It's mainly a free trade association
2. In case of a political union, the CIS members would generally prefer to work with EU rather than Russia

[Bereta_Eder]

The whole world except Norway.

[alva]

I think after this weekends debacle it's goona be quite a while before any new members are approved.

[Gangerolf]

One of the EU supporters' pet arguments is that the EU guarantees everlasting peace and yadayada. If they really believe that they should let the former Yugoslavs in ASAP. But that would require Bosniaks and Serbs to be in a union again, I don't know if they want that.