Talk:Countries bordering the European Union

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[edit] Northern Cyprus

Northern Cyprus doesn't belong on this list; the territory it controls is considered part of the EU, and Northern Cypriot citizens are EU citizens. Sonitus (talk) 23:46, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Akrotiri and Dhekelia

Akrotiri and Dhekelia aren't part of the EU (see [1], so I'm adding them as a border country. This article already included the Netherlands Antilles bordering Guadeloupe before I got here, so for consistency, Akrotiri and Dhekelia should be included as well. Sonitus (talk) 00:29, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Saint Martin

Saint Martin, although now an overseas collectivity of France, rather than part of a French overseas department, is still a part of the EU - see the pages for the European Union and Saint Martin.Sonitus (talk) 00:26, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

How has Norway got a border to the east of the EU? It borders Sweden to the north and west, and borders Finland to the north, but not to the east. Joolz 14:37, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

What about the border between Cyprus and Sovereign base areas of Akrotiki and Dhekelia ? I was not sure enough of the matter and chose not to modify the article on this topic. What should be done ? --French Tourist 19:45, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sovereign bases are not countries, they simply belong to another country -- and in this case the country they belong to *is* a EU member (even if the territory itself isn't considered to be), so normally I don't think they would be listed... Unless we changes the name of the page into "territories bordering the European Union"?
I'm afraid that for the same reason, I'm going to revert your addition of "Kingdom of Netherlands". The Kingdom of Netherlands is a member-state of the EU, even if EU law isn't applied to *all* of its territory.... Unless I've misunderstood the situation. Aris Katsaris 20:21, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Sorry, btw. Aris Katsaris 20:24, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I have spent two useless hours to browse through the treaties -not so useless, I shall get ready for the next votation on the constitutional treaty so... :-)). I really think it is not absurd to add "the kingdom of the Netherlands" to all these lists.
There are loads of obstacles on the way of the construction of these lists.
First we must understand where are the borders of the "European Union".A necdotically, the title of the page is irrelevant for paragraphs relative to dates earlier than 1993 (?) (entry in force of Maastricht treaty). But this is not so anecdotical : indeed to border "the Union" means nothing since the Union is simply a frame for common policy, not even a subject of international law, and has nothing looking like a border. Changing the title to "border the European Community" would not be much better ; though the European Community has the legal personality, that does not mean that "the territory of the Community" or "the borders of the Community" can mean anything ; indeed the treaty of Rome never uses this expression but simply refers to the "territory of the Member states", e.g. at article 18 Every citizen of the Union shall have the right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States, (...). So we have two ways to define a "territory of the EU" whose borders are this article topic :
  • we can gather the pieces of land where the provisions of this Treaty apply (quoted from article 299 of the Treaty of Rome), and this "territory of the EU" will include a little bit of Europe which is not part of the territory of either of its member states, that is Gibraltar (oh indeed, if you think that Gibraltar is part of Spain, then add a "de facto" in previous sentence).
  • or we can glue together the territories of the Member States, which seems indeed consistent with the definition of citizenship of the Union. With this rule, the "territory of the EU" will not include Gibraltar, but will include Aruba or New-Caledonia. This is clearly not the usual definition, and though I can't help finding it more coherent with the word "Union" in the page title. Let's give up this way of working, since it would mean the article would keep track of a series of steps in decolonization, in Algeria, Djibouti or Indonesian Papua. So admittedly let's stick to the first definition of "territory of the EU".
Now we have to understand what means for a country to "border" this territory. The obvious definition would be that a country "borders" the "territory of the union" if somewhere a border separates a piece of land of this country of one side and a piece of the territory of the Union on the other side. With this definition indeed, the kingdom of the Netherlands borders the EU : north of a line on Saint Martin we are "on the territory of the EU" and we are not "on the territory of the kingdom of NL" while on the other side of this line, this is the opposite situation. So with this reasoning indeed, the kingdom of the Netherlands would fulfil all requirements to be in the lists of this article. It seems absurd at first glance to be at the same time a EU member (and a country to which the Treaty of Rome applies) and a country bordering the "territory of the EU" but not so much as far as this "territory" is obtained by gluing state territories (e.g. Austria), parts of state territories (e.g. the Netherlands) and one territory not part of any state (e.g. Gibraltar).
Remains the matter of the British bases in Cyprus (and it is time to think of going to bed too...). Certainly they are not part of the UK so certainly we cannot think of adding the UK in the list of countries bordering the EU. Now are they "a country". I would agree with you that they are not, but it would be necessary to learn more about what a "country" is in international law ; indeed I do not see the reason why the Annex II to Treaty of Rome has been titled "Overseas countries and territories" (seemingly from the original treaty on - this is not something added to please Greenland or some similar thing ; this was at a time where only the kingdom of Netherlands and France were concerned)... I give up ! --French Tourist 22:29, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)


I am back on this talk page, losing incredible amounts of time on this affair (but I enjoy it). There is a new and very serious problem. I have been browsing through EURATOM treaty, and it stipulates that Save as otherwise provided, this Treaty shall apply to the European territories of Member States and to non European territories under their jurisdiction. (http://europa.eu.int/abc/obj/treaties/en/entr39e.htm ), (a protocol annexed allows the Kingdom of the Netherlands to exclude Netherlands Antilles and Suriname). So EURATOM treaty applied in 1958 in at least of the areas listed in the annex IV of the original treaty of Rome, that is (in French, copy-paste from a web copy of the French treaty "L'Afrique-Occidentale française, comprenant : le Sénégal, le Soudan, la Guinée, la Côte d'Ivoire, le Dahomey, la Mauritanie, le Niger et la Haute-Volta  ; L'Afrique-Équatoriale française, comprenant : le Moyen-Congo, l'Oubangui-Chari, le Tchad et le Gabon  ; Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, l'archipel des Comores, Madagascar et dépendances, la Côte française des Somalis, la Nouvelle-Calédonie et dépendances, les Établissements français de l'Océanie, les Terres australes et antarctiques ; La république autonome du Togo ; Le territoire sous tutelle du Cameroun administré par la France ; Le Congo belge et le Ruanda-Urundi ; La Somalie sous tutelle italienne ; La Nouvelle-Guinée néerlandaise.") http://mjp.univ-perp.fr/europe/1957romea4.htm -and of course also in French Algeria.

So if we leave the title of the page as it is now (referring to "European Union"), we have to add things like Ethiopia or Liberia for the first years of the treaties. There is absolutely no objective reason to understand "UE" as meaning "EC" rather than "EC and EURATOM" ! The safer would be to change the page title, I will perhaps do it in some time. --French Tourist 18:08, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Oh I see that in the present version of the article, there is a referrence to the EC, improperly called "predecessor" of the union. So this lengthy commentary gets useless (but remains an interesting information) I hope --French Tourist 18:11, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

And a last serious problem found. As you can read on the original Treaty of Rome, the French departments of Algeria were part of the EEC from 1958 to 1962 (with some restrictions, but not more than for French Guyana). So in the older period should be added to the list Morocco, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Libya and Tunisia (and someone should decide whether Spanish Sahara has to be accounted for a country). Definitely I give up. --French Tourist 18:36, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] German Swiss Enclaves

What about Buesingen-am-Hochrhein, the German exclave in Switzerland? I think it also has others in Switzerland.

What about Andorra Monaco, The Vatican and San Marino? They have (other than Liechtenstein, which economy depends on Switzerland) the euro as currency and even coins of their own. As such, their status should be explained in a way.

[edit] Borders from 2007 on

It says that the following is true from 2007 and on:

Bordering Guadeloupe2:
  • Netherlands Antilles

Won't it be the other way around, i.e. that this part of Guadeloupe will form a new TOM (instead of being part of the Guadeloupe DOM) and thus leave the EU, while this part of the Netherlands will join the EU, both changes effective from 2007-01-01? (218.228.195.44 04:52, 27 October 2006 (UTC))

That depends on whether Sint Maarten becomes part of the EU or not... Either way, all of this happens only on 1 July 2007, not on 1 January 2007. —Nightstallion (?) 21:36, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] pics plz

kthanxbyeSkomorokh 23:18, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "RoM" and "Macedonia"?

European Union uses FYROM as the country's name. This is an article directly related to the European Union. I guess there must be a very good reason why in an article about the EU, the two names mentioned for the country are "RoM" and even "Macedonia"... or not?--   Avg    21:17, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Not only that, but even the "established term" ("Republic of Macedonia") is controversial all of a sudden. I suppose one could argue that the article is as much about the countries outside the EU as it is about the EU itself, so I accepted the "established term" as a fair compromise. But even that wasn't good enough for some. ·ΚέκρωΨ· (talk) 03:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)