European Parliament and Enlargement
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the EU quickly established diplomatic relations with the countries of central and eastern Europe. After initial negotiations in the early 1990s, all EU government leaders agreed that “the associated countries in central and eastern Europe that so desire shall become members of the European Union" at the Copenhagen Summit in 1993. At that summit, government leaders also agreed on the minimum requirements that each candidate country had to fulfil in order to join the EU. The so-called Copenhagen criteria looked at the administrative, economic, legal and political sphere and included the following criteria: stable institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for minorities.
From 1997 the European Parliament closely monitored and supervised enlargement preparations. They visited the candidate countries regularly, went on fact-finding missions and talked to politicians, non-governmental organisations, trade unions and others. From 1999 they presented annual reports to the full Parliament once a year. Parliament then adopted resolutions in which it raised important concerns. It is in this context that the protection of minority groups, including gays and lesbians, was repeatedly raised. On 9 April 2003, the European Parliament concluded that all ten candidate countries had reformed their political, judicial and economic systems sufficiently to be able to join. At the same time, though, Parliament introduced "safeguard clauses" into the Accession Treaty. These allow sanctions to be imposed on countries, which have not complied with EU rules by May 2004.
