After several years of European Union enlargement negotiations (in Malta's case it has been more than 12 years since it applied to join the EU in July 1990), both the EU and applicant countries are about to enter the most delicate phase of the EU enlargement process.
The conclusion of EU membership negotiations and the ratification process that will follow over the next 12 months will determine what the political and economic map of Europe will look like in the decades ahead.
During the past decade Malta and other EU candidate countries have benefited from an unprecedented degree of preparation. The pre-accession strategies and early monitoring of EU acquis implementation have seen more than 5,000 specialists participate in this preparatory process throughout the 15 EU member states and ten EU applicants seeking to join the EU by 2004.
The EU Commission will submit its 12 progress reports on EU candidate countries on October 16. On this occasion the EU Commission will list the progress registered by the candidate countries during the past five years to show the trend that has emerged in relations and not just a snapshot of the EU enlargement process.
Ten countries have a serious chance of meeting the economic, political, and institutional criteria of EU membership. They are Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Malta, Cyprus, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
The EU Commission will place special emphasis on the applicant countries' administrative and judicial capacity to implement EU decisions and legislation as EU member states will require full reassurance on this point before agreeing to enlargement.
It is also clear that there is no chance that Bulgaria might also be included in a 2004 enlargement. Although Bulgaria has been rapidly concluding negotiations in different chapters, it has made commitments to integrate the EU acquis by the end of 2006 and not in 2003, as other front-runner applicants have negotiated.
The budget expenditures for the new member states will be contained within the limits of the €42 billion budget for 2004-6, as foreseen by the European Council in Berlin in early 1999.
Thus, after all the political and economic will that has been invested in the enlargement process, EU member states will do everything possible to ensure that the Copenhagen summit in December 2003 brings to a successful conclusion the current round of EU enlargement negotiations.
The EU Commission has already resumed work on drafting the Accession Treaty. Including annexes, the document will comprise some 6,000 pages and the European Parliament has agreed to provide its assent of the Treaty by next March or April.
Signature might then take place in April or May. That would leave nine to 12 months for the ratification process to be completed in all present and future member states. This would allow new EU members to join in the first half of 2004, in time for the European Parliament elections that are scheduled to take place on June 10, 2004.
Looking ahead, Bulgaria and Romania are also in line to join the EU, but at a future date. The timing of their accession will largely depend on their internal reform process that the EU is already supporting.
The five countries of the former Yugoslavia have also been given an accession perspective. Although no date has been set for membership negotiations to commence with this group of countries, Croatia is already regarded as being prepared to start implementing a pre-accession strategy.
A questionmark also hangs over relations with Turkey at the moment. Although it seems unlikely that the EU will fix a date to open membership negotiations at the Copenhagen summit in December, much will depend on the outcome of the current political imbroglio in Turkey itself.
The overriding geo-strategic importance of Turkey for the EU dictates that the EU live up to its commitment to continue regarding Turkey as a candidate country for as long as it desires.
This month thus sees the commencement of the final and most important phase of the EU enlargement agenda. The EU will soon open its door and allow those countries that are able and willing to join the most successful regional grouping of its kind in the world.
Dr Calleya is an international relations analyst.