Cyprus has had an association agreement with the EC since 1973 and on the 4th of July 1990 it applied for full membership. In the summer of 1993, the Commission issued an opinion, endorsed by the Council of Foreign Ministers in October 1993, recommending that substantive talks could start immediately and in the event that the intercommunal talks fail, "the situation should be reassessed in view of the positions adopted by each party in the talks..".
The substantive talks started in November 1993, were concluded in March 1995 and they aimed at:
- acquainting Cyprus with the acquis communautaire and
- identifying the differences between the acquis communautaire and Cyprus legislation and practice.
According to the Maastricht Treaty, any democratic country with a market-based economy and the ability to adopt in full the acquis communautaire, may apply to become a member of the EU.
Applications for membership have been submitted by Cyprus, Malta, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia and Turkey. Cyprus meets the Maastricht convergence criteria and the date for the launch of its accession negotiations has already been fixed. These negotiations were scheduled to commence 6 months after the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) of 1996 i.e. sometime in the autumn of 1997.
CAUTION: The information in this article is subject to change without notice. Application of the information to specific circumstances requires the advice of lawyers who must rely upon their own sources of information before providing advice. The information in this article is intended only as a general guide and is not to be relied upon as the sole basis for any decision without verification from reliable professional sources familiar with the particular circumstances and the applicable laws in force at that time.
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