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Could the European Union accept a member state or states that are not geographically part of Europe (e.g. Australia) under the current rules?

Brythan
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Charlotte
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    The EU website has an informal description of what conditions are required to join the EU, which says "any European country may apply for membership". but I haven't found a formal document yet which says this. – Philipp Sep 21 '15 at 07:35
  • I remember seen some documents that restrict membership in some of the organisms to European countries. That said, politics is an strange game and, if the parties are interested in, the current treaty may be replaced with a new one, or Australia may get redefined as an "European country" by some bizarre interpretation.. :-D – SJuan76 Sep 21 '15 at 11:43
  • What about Cyprus which is outside of Europe ? – Bregalad Sep 21 '15 at 20:25
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    @Bregalad Cyprus being in Europe is highly debatable, just as EU candidate Turkey. Whereas Australia is not. – Jose Luis Sep 22 '15 at 12:48
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    @Joze First, Turkey is currently not EU candidate. Then it is pretty well accepted that the Bosphore is the limit between Europe and Asia, and thus that Turkey is partly European and partly Asian by its territory. This also clearly settles Cyprus in Asia. Other isles such as Rhodes would be debatable. – Bregalad Sep 22 '15 at 13:40
  • Clearly Russia would in principle be allowed to join, but that would mean that Vladivostok would be inside the Eurozone. – Count Iblis Oct 11 '15 at 19:18
  • Related question: http://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/3211/can-australia-join-the-council-of-europe – Golden Cuy Oct 14 '15 at 05:01
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    @Bregalad Not only has Turkey officially been a candidate since 1999 (applied in 1987) but they are actually negotiating, i.e. further in the process than being merely a candidate. – Relaxed Oct 15 '15 at 17:13
  • Essentially the same question (except phrased slightly narrower): If Turkey can join EU, can China join EU too? –  Oct 25 '17 at 23:09
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    @SJuan76: Admission of Australia to the Eurovision Song Contest suggests the notion of "Europe" can be very flexible if enough people want it to be. ;-) – Royal Canadian Bandit Oct 26 '17 at 08:31
  • Israel participates in many joint European events: sports, Eurovision song contest and such. EU? I have no idea whether they would be A) interested, B) welcome, but it is not such a huge leap to imagine it happening. – Jyrki Lahtonen Aug 16 '23 at 21:25

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Only European states are allowed to join the European Union. Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union (as amended) provides that:

Any European State which respects the values referred to in Article 2 and is committed to promoting them may apply to become a member of the Union.

Of course there is a certain amount of ambiguity of what it means to be European and it can be defined in cultural, historical and geographic terms. Cyprus is a EU member state even though it's geographically a Middle Eastern country, and Turkey is a candidate member state even though only a small part of it is in Europe, geographically speaking. Both countries are also members of the Council of Europe, the membership of which is also limited to "European States".

In contrast when Morocco applied for EU membership for 1987 it was rejected on the basis that is was not a European country. In that case there was no ambiguity.

MJ Walsh
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