EU individual paragraph

HOW CAN A COUNTRY JOIN THE EU?

1st DRAFT 

To join the EU, any country seeking membership has to meet the Copenhagen Criteria. These accession criteria were set up by the Copenhagen European Council in 1993 and describe the requirements a country has to fulfill in order to become part of the EU. A new member State must show political stability, a guarantee of democracy, the rule of law and the and protection of human rights and minorities. Next to that, the state has to prove the existence of a functioning market economy which is able to deal with competitive pressure. The candidate country has to accept the obligations and intentions of the EU and therefore take on a subordinate role. Any European country that meets this criteria is allowed to join the EU, but only the European Council and the Commission define whether a country is, geographically seen, European. Right now, Iceland, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey are candidate countries whose applications are scrutinized in the light of the Copenhagen Criteria. 

[170 words]

FEEDBACK (thank you, Natasha!)

Natasha mentioned some things I should change in order to improve style, register and cohesion of my paragraph. It's funny how you can overlook your own mistakes all the time until somebody else points them out. 

Corrections:

To join the EU, any country seeking membership has to meet (change to "is required"?)  the Copenhagen Criteria. These accession criteria were set up by the Copenhagen European Council in 1993 and describe the requirements a country has to fulfill in order to become part of the EU. ("These requirements are.." cohesion!) A new member state (not capitalized!)  must show political stability, a guarantee of democracy, the rule of law and the and (don't know what happened here ... ) protection of human rights and minorities. Next to that, the state has to prove the existence of a functioning market economy which (change to "that") is able to deal with competitive pressure. The candidate country has to accept the obligations and intentions of the EU and therefore take on a subordinate role. Any European country that meets this criteria (change to sth. like "is willing to / is able to meet...)  is allowed to join the EU, but only the European Council and the Commission define whether a country is, geographically seen, European. Right now, Iceland, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey are candidate countries whose applications are scrutinized in the light of the Copenhagen Criteria. 

I was also advised to put the sentence about the "geographic definition" up to the other requirements to get more structure in the whole paragraph. 

FINAL VERSION

To join the EU, any country seeking membership has to meet the Copenhagen Criteria. These accession criteria were set up by the Copenhagen European Council in 1993 and describe the requirements a new member state has to fulfill in order to become part of the EU. These requirements are political stability, a guarantee of democracy, the rule of law and protection of human rights and minorities. Next to that, the state has to prove the existence of a functioning market economy that is able to deal with competitive pressure. The candidate country has to accept the obligations and intentions of the EU and therefore take on a subordinate role. One obvious restriction is the fact that only European countries can join the EU, but only the European Council and the Commission define whether a country is, geographically seen , European. All in all, any country willing and able to satisfy these criteria is allowed to join the EU. Right now, Iceland, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey are candidate countries whose applications are scrutinized in the light of the Copenhagen Criteria. 

[180 words]

Note: I was absent in week 3, so I received feedback only once. 

EU Paper Topics

1. How the euro got its design
Since I am a graphic designer I am fairly interested in the procedure of how the design of the euro was chosen. I heard about it at school but I would like to go deeper into this topic. Next to that, I think this topic is focused enough to not get lost in general facts.

2. Translating for the EU parliament
I guess it's obvious why this topic is on my list. Right now I do not know much about the daily routine of a translator of the EU parliament so writing a paper about it would be a great chance to find out about it ;)

3. European Award for Pop Surrealism and Urban Art
I love art - especially Surrealism. I would concentrate on the criteria of how a winner is chosen, where the whole event takes place and so on. But have I mentioned the main reason for choosing it yet? - I love art. ;)

4. Future Enlargement of the European Union
What are the plans for the near future? What about the recognized candidates as Iceland, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey? What is left to be done until these countries can become part of the EU?

5. EU response to the Arab Spring
Visits, civil protection, and support for partnership, poorer areas and reform - by choosing this topic I'd like to give a shot overview of how the EU responded to the events of the Arab Spring. For a better focus I would concentrate on one specific country of the Middle East.


I could imagine writing a paper about all of these topics but one of them is already my favorite. But we'll see :)