Progress towards meeting economic criteria for accession: the assessment from the 2004 regular report

In this Enlargement Paper the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs brings together into a single document the economic chapters of the Regular Reports of 2004 on progress made towards meeting the accession criteria of each candidate country (Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey), as well as a horizontal overview. The European Commission adopted these Reports on 6 October 2004. The introduction explains the methodology underlying these Reports that the Commission has been following since the publication of the 1997 Opinion, in order to carry out these assessments.

The purpose of this Enlargement Paper is to facilitate the work of those scholars, researchers and analysts of the enlargement process, which are mainly interested in the economic aspects. As such, it represents only a part of the overall progress made by the acceding and remaining candidate countries towards meeting the accession criteria.

A proper full assessment of progress made by candidate countries towards accession will require the reader to have a comprehensive reading of progress made under all examined aspects. These can be found in the Regular Reports 2003.