Handbook on European Enlargement:A Commentary on the Enlargement Process

The Handbook on European Enlargement (HEE) is the most comprehensive legal commentary on the enlargement process, which brings together 52 leading authors from Member States and candidate countries, who are working at the European Commission, universities and in public administrations. The underlying rationale is to depict and analyze the legal framework for the enlargement process and to provide a comprehensive guide to academics, practitioners and students. To do this the HEE covers the Europe Agreements and Association Agreements, decisions of the Association Councils, appropriate judgments of the ECJ, the Accession Partnerships, the candidate countries' National Plans for the Adoption of the Acquis as well as the role of the European Commission (Progress Reports), the funding instruments that underpin the whole process (PHARE, ISPA, SAPARD) and the legal orders of the candidate countries.More specifically, the HEE tackles: + the legal, political and historical background to the present enlargement preparations; + the status of the Europe Agreements and Association Council Decisions in the legal orders of the candidate countries for the purposes of EU integration; + how the (re-oriented) Europe Agreements apply; + other regional instruments including the SAAs and the PCAs; + the chapters of the EU/EC acquis communautaire and their implementation in the candidate countries and practical examples of problems arising; + the pre-accession process and the Accession Partnerships; + financial and technical assistance and its application in the accession phase to, e.g., agriculture, infrastructure, environment; + the accession negotiations in progress. 'While the need for simplicity and brevity, due to practical constraints on the size of the final book, proved a considerable challenge, the outcome is a book that reads well, is well structured and organised and is surprisingly easy to dip into for reference purposes. [...] It works according to a simple methodology that aims to give the reader a broad, legal overview and analysis of the enlargement project.'From the Foreword by Professor Marc Maresceau