How long did it take for countries to become an EU member and what’s their current status?

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The European Union was officially founded in 1993 after the signing of the treaty of Maastricht. But it’s origins can be traced back to its’ predecessor, to 1958 when the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, West Germany, France and Italy signed the treaty of Rome and established the European Economic Community (EEC). This map looks at the period from 1958 until now and includes both the EEC and EU.

Becoming an EU member

The European Union currently has 27 members and hasn’t welcomed any new members since Croatia’s accession in 2013. There is currently discussion whether or not the EU should welcome new members in the next few years. On this map I want to look at the current status of each European country regarding the EU and also how many years it has taken to join the EU.

To join the EU, there are roughly four stages of becoming a member. First a country must apply. The EU will then decide whether the country can become a candidate or whether the application will be rejected. Once the application is accepted, the country becomes a candidate. Before the negotiations with a candidate can start, they have to meet a set of criteria outlined by the EU members upon granting candidate status. Once those requirements are met, the EU members and the candidate country will start negotiations to determine the terms of their EU accession and make sure the candidate has aligned their domestic legislation with EU law before joining. Once the negotiations are successfully concluded, the candidate becomes an EU member.

Let’s have a look at the map. First, we see the blue countries. These are the EU members. The dark-blue countries are the six founding members. Of the current EU members, Finland was the fastest to join the EU. Only three years after applying it became a member, it joined the EU in 1995. Cyprus has taken the longest to join the EU. It took Cyprus 14 years to become a member.

The Candidates and Applicants

Currently, there are six candidates that are in negotiations: North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania, Moldova and Ukraine. Negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova have only started recently. All of the other candidates in negotiations, have been in the process of becoming an EU member longer than Cyprus did.

There are also four candidates that were in negotiations, but the negotiations have been frozen. Norway and Iceland have frozen the negotiations themselves. Iceland applied for EU membership in 2009 and one year later, negotiations already started. However, in 2013 Iceland put the negotiations on hold and froze the application. In 2015 the Foreign Minister of Iceland send a letter to the EU (without the approval of the Icelandic parliament) withdrawing the Iceland application. However, Iceland has not formally withdrawn the application and every now and then there are still talks in Iceland about resuming the negotiations. The negotiations with Turkey have been frozen by the EU in 2019. Turkey and the EU have been in negotiations for 32 years and Turkey is still very far away from becoming an EU member. Georgia is the most recent country with a frozen candidacy. Their candidacy was frozen in 2024 by the EU, only 2 years after applying. It was frozen due to the adaptation of a law requiring non-governmental and media entities to register as “foreign agents”.

In 2022, after applying for membership in 2016, Bosnia and Herzegovina was granted candidate status. At the moment, Bosnia and Herzegovina is the only candidate for whom negotiations have not started.

There is one country that has applied to become an EU member, but has not yet been granted candidate status. This is Kosovo.

Former members and applicants

There are also countries that have had their application rejected or withdrew their application. Switzerland applied to become a member in 1992, but due to the outcome of a referendum later that year, Switzerland froze the application. In 2016, Switzerland decided to officially withdraw their frozen application.

A few countries have got their application rejected. Spain in 1962 due to it being a dictatorship and the UK in 1961 and 1967 due to a veto by France. Another unexpected country that got their application rejected, is Morocco. After applying in 1987, Morocco quickly got a negative response from the EU that their application was rejected due to Morocco not being a European country.

So far, there has been only one member that left the EU. After a 2016 referendum, the UK left the EU in 2020. Although the UK is the only member to leave the EU, there are some territories that left the EU. Algeria was a member of the EU as a French overseas department and left the EU in 1976 upon gaining independence from France in 1962. Even though Algeria gained independence, it continued to be part of the EEC, as the text of the Treaty of Rome continued to refer to Algeria by name apart from the other overseas territories of France. In 1976 the European Economic Community signed a treaty with Algeria, formalizing their relationship as a neighbouring entities.

Greenland joined the EU in 1973, but left in 1985, after it gained autonomy in 1979 and a 1982 referendum ruled that its citizens preferred for Greenland to leave the EU. Two French overseas territories have also left the EU. St-Pierre and Miquelon left in 1985 and St-Barthélemy left in 2012.