'The European Union is now preparing for its biggest enlargement ever in terms of scope and diversity. 13 countries have applied to become new members: 10 of these countries - Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia are set to join on 1st May 2004. Bulgaria and Romania hope to do so by 2007, while Turkey is not currently negotiating its membership.'
Other interesting facts: 'In order to allow for concerns in existing member states the EU negotiated transitional arrangements of a flexible nature with the Central and East European Countries, to allow the existing member states to limit movements of workers from the new member states for a period of up to seven years after enlargement.'
Wikipedia reports: "Their combined population is roughly 75 million [the current EU population is 370 million]; their combined Gross Domestic Product is about 840 billion US dollars (purchasing power parity; CIA World Factbook 2003), similar in size to that of Spain."
Wikipedia continues: "Ratification in [the candidate countries] was subject to a referendum, except for Cyprus where the parliament was solely responsible. The 2003 referenda dates (in four of the countries, a two-day ballot is held), and the outcomes in each of the candidate countries, are as follows:
Malta - 54% in favour (March 8)
Slovenia - 90% in favour (March 23)
Hungary - 83% in favour (April 12)
Lithuania - 91% in favour (May 10-11)
Slovakia - 92% in favour (May 16-17)
Poland - 77% in favour (June 7-8)
Czech Republic - 77% in favour (June 13-14)
Estonia - 67% in favour (September 14)
Latvia - 67% in favour (September 20)"