The European Union is currently made up of 27 Member States, while there is an ongoing process for its future enlargement.
At the moment several countries have the 'candidate' status and are waiting to join the EU, while others are potential candidates for the future.
The candidate countries are: Croatia; Iceland; the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; Montenegro; and Turkey.
The potential candidate countries are: Albania; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Serbia; as well as Kosovo under UNSCR 1244/99.
The role of Eurostat is to follow the progress of the candidate and potential candidate countries in the area of statistics and to support them in their efforts to align their statistical data with EU and international standards by providing assistance and collecting data from those countries.
The Commission prepares every year Progress Reports (with Statistical Annexes) on each country. These reports describe the political and economic developments in the candidate and potential candidate countries. They assess the ability of the candidate countries to transpose and implement EU legislation and the progress of the potential candidate countries in adopting EU standards and in fulfilling other specific conditions. They highlight the main achievements and pinpoint the shortcomings.
Please find more detailed information in the Library section of this Interest Group, or by following directly one of these links: