DISINFO: Reducing trade with Russia was the main requirement for EU membership since the 1990s
SUMMARY
In the mid-1990s, the EU's main condition for candidate countries was to increase their trade with Common Market countries. And as part of the overall package, a reduction in trade with everyone else. In other words, the reduction of trade with Russia and the increase of trade with the EU states was the main indicator of the candidate countries’ progress towards accession.
RESPONSE
The claim advances a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative casting the EU as an expansionist and anti-Russian project. The claim is manifestly wrong.
The most comprehensive source of EU membership criteria since the mid-1990s has been the 1993 Copenhagen Declaration, in which these are summarised as follows:
"Membership requires that the candidate country has achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities, the existence of a functioning market economy as well as the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union. Membership presupposes the candidate's ability to take on the obligations of membership including adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union."
On the issue of trade, the declaration explicitly contradicts the claim:
"The European Council, recognising the crucial importance of trade in the transition to a market economy, agreed to accelerate the Community's efforts to open up its markets. It expected this step forward to go hand in hand with further development of trade between those countries themselves and between them and their traditional trading partners [emphasis added]."
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