50 years of deepening and widening

I am pleased to be here today to open this conference. DG Enlargement has put together an excellent set of panels to discuss the key issues facing enlargement. This is a great opportunity to learn lessons from past enlargements and prepare for future ones.

But I’d like to start by taking issue – in a most friendly manner – with the reference in title of the conference to “Three decades of enlargement”. Why only three decades? In fact, enlargement has been part of the development of European integration right from the start. Let’s remember the existential debate among the original six Member States, and the outside seven. Enlargement was a major item on the agenda in 1963, when General de Gaulle opposed the accession of the United Kingdom – the same year when he signed the Ankara Agreement with Turkey.