• European Commission
• Enlargement
• The policy
• The process of Enlargement

The mandate and the framework

Following the unanimous decision of the Council to set a negotiating mandate, accession negotiations may be opened between the candidate and all the Member States. For each candidate country, the EU sets a negotiating framework, which establishes the general guidelines for the accession negotiations. Using the instrument of Accession Partnerships it also identifies the reforms and adaptations that the candidate country must undertake in order to join the European Union.

Negotiations take place between the EU Member States and candidate countries, at the level of ministers and ambassadors. They focus on the conditions and timing of the candidate's adoption, implementation and enforcement of all the EU rules already in force. These rules (also known as "acquis", French for "that which has been agreed") are not negotiable. For candidates, it is essentially a matter of agreeing on how and when to adopt and implement EU rules and procedures. For the EU, it is important to obtain guarantees on the date and effectiveness of each candidate's alignment with the relevant part of acquis. The negotiations also cover financial arrangements (such as the new Member's contribution to the revenue of the EU budget and the expected volume of transfers to that Member within the overall expenditure from the EU budget) as well as possible transitional arrangements, requested either by the Member States or by the candidate country.

For the purpose of the accession negotiations the EU legislation is divided into the following 35 subject-related chapters.

The chapters of the acquis

• The mandate and the framework
• Screening and monitoring
• Closure of negotiations and Accession Treaty