Europe map: enlargement of the European Union (EU)

This map shows the enlargement of the European Union (EU), a supranational political and economic union in Europe. Currently, the EU has 27 member states, the result of a long process of enlargement. To join, a country must meet economic and political requirements (Copenhagen Criteria). The largest single enlargement took place in 2004, when ten countries joined. The United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU in 2020 (Brexit) remains the only time the EU has decreased in size after decades of growth.

Timeline of the enlargement of the EU:

1957

• Belgium
• France
• Germany
• Italy
• Luxembourg
• Netherlands

1973

• Denmark
• Ireland
• United Kingdom (Brexit: 2020)

1981

• Greece

1986

• Portugal
• Spain

1995

• Austria
• Finland
• Sweden

2004

• Cyprus
• Czechia
• Estonia
• Hungary
• Latvia
• Lithuania
• Malta
• Poland
• Slovakia
• Slovenia

2007

• Bulgaria
• Romania

2013

• Croatia

Map created by NWEGEO; administrative boundaries and fill colours by Mapchart.net. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).