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The 1995 enlargement of the European Union saw
Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
,
Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...
, and
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
accede to the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
(EU). This was the EU's fourth enlargement and came into effect on 1 January of that year. It is also known as the EFTA Enlargement round. All these states were previous members of the
European Free Trade Association The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) is a regional trade organization and free trade area consisting of four List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Europe, European states: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. ...
(EFTA) and had traditionally been less interested in joining the EU than other European countries.
Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...
had negotiated to join alongside the other three, but following the signing of the treaty, membership was turned down by the Norwegian electorate in the 1994 national referendum.
Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
also applied for membership on 26 May 1992, but withdrew it after a negative referendum result on 6 December 1992 (and that was not changed after a second negative referendum result on 4 March 2001).


Closer links

The three states, plus
Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...
and
Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
(which never joined due to their referendum results) began to look at stronger ties with the EU (which was the
European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organisation created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisbo ...
(EEC) before 1993) towards the end of the 1980s for three principal reasons: the 1980s economic downturn in Europe, difficulties for EFTA companies to export to the EU and the end of the Cold War.Bache, Ian and Stephen George (2006) ''Politics in the European Union'', Oxford University Press. p543-547 After the 1970s Europe experienced a downturn which led to leaders launching of the
Single European Act The Single European Act (SEA) was the first major revision of the 1957 Treaty of Rome. The Act set the European Community an objective of establishing a single market by 31 December 1992, and a forerunner of the European Union's Common Fore ...
which set to create a single market by 1992. The effect of this was that
EFTA The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) is a regional trade organization and free trade area consisting of four European states: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. The organization operates in parallel with the European Union ...
states found it harder to export to the EEC and businesses (including large EFTA corporations such as
Volvo The Volvo Group (; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distribution and sale of truck ...
) wished to relocate within the new single market making the downturn worse for EFTA. EFTA states began to discuss closer links with the EEC despite its domestic unpopularity. Finally, Austria, Finland and Sweden were neutral in the
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
so membership of an organisation developing a common foreign and security policy would be incompatible with that. As that obstacle was removed, the desire to pursue membership grew stronger.


EEA

However membership was still domestically unpopular and the then-EEC was also uninterested in another enlargement. The EEC had begun working on the creation of a common currency and did not want another enlargement to divert their attention away from that project.
Commission President The president of the European Commission, also known as president of the College of Commissioners is the head of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union (EU). The president of the Commission leads a cabinet of commis ...
Jacques Delors Jacques Lucien Jean Delors (; 20 July 192527 December 2023) was a French politician who served as the eighth president of the European Commission from 1985 to 1995. Delors played a key role in the creation of the single market, the euro and th ...
proposed the
European Economic Area The European Economic Area (EEA) was established via the ''Agreement on the European Economic Area'', an international agreement which enables the extension of the European Union's single market to member states of the European Free Trade Asso ...
to give EFTA access to the EU's internal market without full membership. While they would not have a say in the creation of EU law, it would be easier to sell to their electorates. However businesses did not accept that the EEA members would be equal members of the single market and investment flows did not return to normal. The large manufacturers in Sweden were instrumental in pushing government policy further towards membership rather than remaining with the EEA, which the export focused industries found insufficient. The economic pressures overcame long standing opposition from the social democrat governments which saw the EU as too neo-liberal and a danger to the
Nordic model The Nordic model comprises the economic and social policies as well as typical cultural practices common in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden). This includes a comprehensive welfare state and multi-level colle ...
. Firms were only kept within Sweden by devaluations of the
Swedish krona The krona (; plural: ''kronor''; sign: kr; code: SEK) is the currency of Sweden. Both the ISO code "SEK" and currency sign "kr" are in common use for the krona; the former precedes or follows the value, the latter usually follows it but, espec ...
, a strategy which was unsustainable in the long term. The EEA was damaged further when the Swiss electorate voted against it. Austria, Finland, Norway and Sweden all applied for full membership of the EU and the EU agreed to enter negotiations. The EU's change of heart was also due to predicted enlargement of the EU towards countries mostly in central Europe, invited by the European Commission in 1997 and eventually completed in 2004, and hence the wealthy EFTA members would help balance the EU budget.


Accession

On 30 March 1994, accession negotiations concluded with Austria, Sweden, Finland and Norway. Their accession treaties were signed on 25 June of that year. Each country held
referendum A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate (rather than their Representative democracy, representatives) on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either bin ...
s on entry resulting on entry for all except Norway (whose second referendum failed); * Austria (application submitted in July 1989) - 66.6% in favour (12 June 1994) * Finland (application submitted in March 1992 and separate referendum held in
Ã…land Ã…land ( , ; ) is an Federacy, autonomous and Demilitarized zone, demilitarised region of Finland. Receiving its autonomy by a 1920 decision of the League of Nations, it is the smallest region of Finland by both area () and population (30,54 ...
) - 56.9% in favour (16 October 1994) * Sweden (application submitted in July 1991) - 52.8% in favour (13 November 1994); * Norway (application submitted in December 1992) - 47.8% in favour (28 November 1994) Austria, Finland and Sweden became EU members on 1 January 1995. Sweden held its elections to the
European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...
for its MEPs later that year on 17 September. The following year, Austria held its elections on 13 October and Finland on 20 October.


Deferred areas of inclusion

Austria, Sweden, Finland became members on 1 January 1995, but some areas of cooperation in the European Union were deferred to a later date. These are: *
Eurozone The euro area, commonly called the eurozone (EZ), is a Monetary union, currency union of 20 Member state of the European Union, member states of the European Union (EU) that have adopted the euro (Euro sign, €) as their primary currency ...
(see
Enlargement of the eurozone The enlargement of the eurozone is an ongoing process within the European Union (EU). All member states of the European Union, except Denmark which negotiated an opt-out from the provisions, are obliged to adopt the euro as their sole currency on ...
; Sweden is still not a member of the Eurozone)


Impact

The impact of the 1995 enlargement was smaller than most as the members were wealthy and already culturally aligned with existing members. It did however create a Nordic bloc in the Council, with Sweden and Finland backing up Denmark on environmental and human rights issues (which Austria also backed up) and the Nordic countries also called for membership of the
Baltic states The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern co ...
. As net contributors to the EU budget, they also increased the voice for budgetary reform. Before the 1995 enlargement, the EU had ten treaty languages: Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Irish, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. However, due to the 1995 enlargement, two new official languages were added: Swedish (which is an official language of both Sweden and Finland) and Finnish. This enlargement began to show the problems with the EU's institutional structure, such as the size of the Commission (with minor jobs insulting the state receiving them) and the Council's voting rules meaning states representing 41% of the population could be outvoted. This resulted in the increase in the blocking minority in the Council and the loss of the larger states' second European Commissioner. Planning also began on new amending treaties to ready the bloc for the next enlargement.


See also

* European Civil Service Training Network *
Finnish euro coins Finnish euro coins (Finnish language, Finnish: Suomalaiset eurokolikot) (Swedish language, Swedish: Finska euromynt) feature three designs. Heikki Häiväoja provided the design for the 1 cent – 50 cent coins, Pertti Mäkinen provided the design ...
* Sweden and the euro *
1973 enlargement of the European Communities The 1973 enlargement of the European Communities was the first enlargement of the European Communities (EC), now the European Union (EU). Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom (UK) acceded to the EC on 1 January 1973. Gibraltar and Greenland a ...
*
1981 enlargement of the European Communities The 1981 enlargement of the European Communities was the second enlargement of what is now the European Union, then the European Communities (EC). Greece acceded to the EEC on 1 January 1981. It is considered a part of the Mediterranean enlargemen ...
* 1986 enlargement of the European Communities *
2004 enlargement of the European Union The largest enlargement of the European Union (EU), in terms of number of states and population, took place on 1 May 2004. The simultaneous accessions concerned the following countries (sometimes referred to as the "A10" countries): Cyprus, ...
*
2007 enlargement of the European Union On 1 January 2007, Bulgaria and Romania became member states of the European Union (EU) in the fifth wave of EU enlargement. Bulgaria and Romania did not have a referendum related to European Union accession. Negotiations Romania was the ...
*
2013 enlargement of the European Union The most recent enlargement of the European Union saw Croatia become the European Union's 28th member state on 1 July 2013. The country applied for EU membership in 2003, and the Euro ...
*
Neutral and Non-Aligned European States Neutral and Non-Aligned European States, sometimes known by abbreviation NN states, was a Cold War era informal grouping of states in Europe which were neither part of NATO nor Warsaw Pact but were either neutral or members of the Non-Aligned Mo ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1995 Enlargement Of The European Union Historical enlargements of the European Union Enlargement Of The European Union, 1995 Enlargement Of The European Union, 1995
Enlargement of the European Union The European Union (EU) has expanded a number of times throughout its history by way of the accession of new member state of the European Union, member states to the Union. To join the EU, a state needs to fulfil economic and political condit ...
Austria and the European Union Finland and the European Union Sweden and the European Union
Enlargement of the European Union The European Union (EU) has expanded a number of times throughout its history by way of the accession of new member state of the European Union, member states to the Union. To join the EU, a state needs to fulfil economic and political condit ...
Enlargement of the European Union The European Union (EU) has expanded a number of times throughout its history by way of the accession of new member state of the European Union, member states to the Union. To join the EU, a state needs to fulfil economic and political condit ...
Enlargement of the European Union The European Union (EU) has expanded a number of times throughout its history by way of the accession of new member state of the European Union, member states to the Union. To join the EU, a state needs to fulfil economic and political condit ...